


Shadows

by IllusiveWritings



Category: Castle
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 63,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2536964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllusiveWritings/pseuds/IllusiveWritings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt on castlefanficprompts. What happens when homicide Detective Kate Beckett and a mystery writer Richard Castle meet and he does all he can to shadow her on her cases? What happens when they find out she's a vampire and he's a werewolf? Urban!Fantasy AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Alex from castlefanfics on Tumblr for the beta reading, God knows I need it and to alyssinmymind for the artwork.

**Prologue**

For centuries they had been only material for legends and folk tales. Superstition fed myths about the immortal creatures of the night, tales to scare children and keep them in line with the threat of the boogeyman that would come and take them at night if they didn’t behave.

Witches flying on broomsticks cursing people, fairies helping them. Corpses returning from their graves, brainless and craving human flesh, troubled spirits of the dead, haunting the living with their presence, the dangerous werewolves hunting during the night o the full moon, in the woods, howling and banqueting on herds and the occasional traveler. The fascinating and elegant vampires, feeding on the blood of the living, the most dangerous of all for their similarity with their helpless victims. With the discoveries of the ancient Egypt tombs and the mummies, another kind of monster became famous, ancient curses falling upon those who dared to disturb their millennial sleep.

Names changed with the culture and the language, even their characteristics weren’t uniform, the descriptions were diversified through the years, but in every culture of the world there were legends that told the stories of the immortals. These stories so famous that with years, and some refinements and with the help of history and the genius minds of writers, they became the horror stories that are known today. John Polidori helped shape the figure of the vampire, which inspired Bram Stoker to create Count Dracula, based on the story of bloody Vlad The Impaler, an historical figure from Romania. Gervase Of Tilbury was credited for one of the first descriptions of lycanthropes and old women with expertise in healing with herbs and flowers were described as witches by the superstitious crowds, their hate fueled by religious ignorance. Fairies became famous when authors such as the Grimm Brothers and their colleagues created the traditional fairy tales that Walt Disney transposed on the silver screen. Mary Shelley and her Creature gave birth to the application of science in horror literature.

By the time the twentieth century had come, these creatures, once feared and a cause of distress among the populations all around the world, became a source of entertainment.  Authors and actors becoming famous for their portrayal of monsters and various folk creatures. Most of the movies in the early years of cinema featured these creatures, with zombies, vampires and werewolves becoming essentially a cultural phenomenon throughout the world. They lost their scary characteristics and were seen more as romanticized figures that once were used to keep kids in line. People dressed like them for Halloween, Hollywood made billions with films about what once used to intimidate people.

Immortals had become a business.

And unbeknownst to humans, that business helped the real immortals thrive and integrate with society. Despite being relegated to creatures that had spawned the legends that had been told for centuries, werewolves and vampires did actually exist. Hidden from the world, they had lived for thousands of years along with humans, trying not to be seen.

And they had managed to remain hidden, to keep their existence tied to legends and ancient lore that no one believed anymore. Until the mid-seventies, with the advancement of medicine, new diagnostic tests were created and those tests caught diseases better and faster than before, but they also found something else. There were abnormalities in some specimens’ blood, differences that made their blood thicker, in a sense, with increased cellular functionality, faster mitosis, better oxygen transportation and an extremely efficient immune system. Upon lab testing, those samples of blood were completely immune to every disease, be it a virus or bacteria, as well as immune to every type of poison.

They performed test after test, until someone tried to expose some samples to a powerful UV light source, in reaction to which a part of the samples deteriorated. If exposure was long enough, deterioration was beyond repair. Thinking about a new form of porphyria, the tests went on until further research and the advancement in DNA technology brought an incredible discovery. The DNA of some people, a very small community spread throughout the US – and possibly the world - according to the CDC, carried an unknown pool of genes that had never been observed since the invention of DNA testing. At first it was thought to be a mutation brought on by the still-going evolution of the species, however  when some of the owners of those genes were questioned about any possible difference between them and the standard human being the incredible truth had been revealed when a scared vampire teenager pressured by the CDC investigators, told them the truth about his nature.

That’s how immortals were discovered.

The news spread all over the world faster than light, leaving humanity baffled and unsure of what to do. According to the legends, immortals were dangerous killing machines, feeding on human blood and flesh to survive, sleeping in coffins or hunting in packs at night. Finding out that, after all, they weren’t just stories designed to tingle our senses and provide us thrills during slumber parties, was a shock for everyone.

In some areas of the world witch-hunts broke out and immortals were driven out and blamed for things that were completely unrelated to them. Fear and hate were the first emotions that spread, along with shock. Some were killed, because even if they were apparently not able to age, there were some weapons that could kill them all too well.

But with time, opinion on their existence became different, the change was slow but it happened and new laws were written to include them in society. Throughout the nineties, the world slowly became, year by year, more immortal friendly. Some people were still wary of them, there were some religious groups that advocated for their death, not too different for those hate groups that detested homosexuality, although the situation was a lot different. Hate groups against immortals were scared of their power, so usually kept away from them and attacked using only words, hate groups against homosexuals didn’t care and often acted violently against them. In a twisted way, immortals had it easier.

At least werewolves did.

Lycanthropes could hide in a crowd more easily, they didn’t have specific signs of their species on their body, by the time they reached adulthood most had learned how to control their transformation and weren’t a slave of their mood anymore. Legends said they changed only during the full moon, but it wasn’t true: a werewolf changed into his or her lycanthropic shape when in a foul mood, when in pressing need and when scared, or at will, when they learned how to do it. They didn’t have special marks, or any visible difference between them and a normal human being.

And there was nothing supernatural about it, they weren’t bitten by cursed wolves under the full moon, werewolves were a different form of humans. They weren’t part of the same species, they weren’t homo sapiens sapiens. They had been dubbed homo lupus sapiens by scientists, but they had nothing in common with wolves on a biologic point of view. They had a similar morphology when they changed, although they retained their two-legged posture and their features morphed to a more beast-like appearance, with a slightly elongated muzzle containing sharp teeth, and their nails grew to sharp claws. Their musculoskeletal structure changed, they grew bigger, more imposing than their human form, but their basic anatomy didn’t change drastically. Some of them grew longer and thicker body hair in their transformation, but it looked nothing like wolf fur: it was normal human body hair, just thicker and longer. There were smooth werewolves, although they were extremely rare. Their senses were also heightened, but that happened even when they were in their normal state. Biologist, geneticists and anthropologists all over the world were working to locate the origin of the genetic mutation that caused lycanthropy. Most agreed on considering it a way nature had come up with to protect humans living in harsh, cold territories where they could be easy prey for large animals. Werewolves normally had a higher body temperature and had a naturally buffed physique that made them look like they worked out even if they were the greatest couch potatoes in the world. No one would notice this and that gave them an edge against predators, when the species had evolved. Or partially evolved, as an expert in evolution hypothesized. They looked like normal human beings with superhuman strength and more chances of survival in the case of a zombie apocalypse.

Vampires though, they had it much harder.

After thorough examinations, it was found that vampirism was indeed a new, yet undiscovered form of porphyria, or at least a similar disease. The most accredited theory said it may have spawned from erythropoietic porphyria, the most extreme form of porphyria, and evolved in its own way when it found a tougher than usual group of humans that resisted the disease. It progressed to become an integral part of their genetic code, thus made vampirism a genetic mutation as well, that caused extreme sensitivity to sunlight, extreme anemia that required the consumption of blood, or in modern times, iron supplements and a specific diet, and the trademark sharp canines that allowed them to consume raw meat, a perfect source of iron, without an itch. And, just as werewolves, vampires had acquired some peculiar abilities that made her superior to humans: improved senses, enhanced strength, they required less sleep than the norm and they were naturally more perceiving than usual. Some people thought they were able to read the minds of other people, while in reality, their intuition was just sharper than theirs. Obviously they didn't fly or turn into bats, those parts were just plain bullshit, but the mind reading was nearly true, coupled with the fact that they could charm away nearly everyone they met, they had their perks. Their need to hide and keep out of the sun had turned those affected by vampirism into the perfect investigator, an evolutionary trait that made them able to sneak out of even the direst situation without a scratch, only by talking their way out of it.

Again, biology had an explanation for their condition.

What seemed peculiar was the rate those conditions spread: being DNA-related conditions, one would think normal genetics would apply, but it turned out that the pool of genes that determined both vampirism and lycanthropy were recessive genes. Above all, vampirism developed only if the extremely rare form of porphyria linked to the condition met those specific genes that made it turn into vampire-related porphyria, as vampirism was usually called by scientists. Same went for lycanthropy: the mutation was hereditary, but even if two werewolves had a child there was a chance he or she would be a normal human being. Mixed couples had equal possibilities: a werewolf and a human could have a perfectly healthy human being that would grow, age and get sick at a normal rate, a fully developed werewolf or a human that expressed some characteristics of lycanthropy, like the better working immune system or the exceptional, innate strength, but no other visible characteristics. Immortals could be born by a human couple too: if one parent had the recessive pool of genes in his or her genetic traits that weren't showing for any reason and the other brought on the part that made the DNA mutate into vampiric or lycanthropic DNA, an immortal child could be born. Still rare, but not exceptional.

But scientist were baffled most by their technical immortality. Their cells divided and replicated impossibly fast, according to traditional science, a feat that allowed them to cure themselves faster and survive gruesome wounds that would kill a normal human being instantly. Their immune system killed any foreign intruder in their body and vaccines looked obsolete when compared to their natural immunity. They aged, but the rate was much, much slower: a century old immortal looked more like a twenty-something human. And they kept that appearance for ages. If an immortal looked like a sixty years old human or older, you could bet that his or her age would span across millennia. Those were rare, but some of them still existed and simply pretended to be normal aging humans.

According to some, they were the next step in human evolution. Others considered them the devil spawn. Most of the human population didn’t care as long as they didn’t kill anyone. Thus, the world changed. So did the law.

Anti-vampiric mobbing was declared illegal and firing a vampire or a werewolf based on their species was punishable by law. Vampire safe-zones were established and lasted from ninety minutes before sundown to one hour after sunrise, which meant it seasonally changed. During that time frame UV radiations were at their lowest and it was safe for them to go outside. Most vampires took night jobs or night shift even before the revolution so very little changed for them anyway, but for those who had demanding jobs, specific windowpanes that filtered all the UV radiation while letting sunlight in were created for both houses and commercial buildings, which made their lives a lot easier than in the past.

Of course, there were issues. Laws were made to be broken, so some companies instated internal rules and policies that wouldn’t allow immortals to be hired. Some companies were openly anti-immortals and they weren’t silent about it. Others were more inclined to accept them, public administration had to maintain a neutral ground and slowly, by 2002, nearly twenty years after the discovery of their existence, the first few immortals were seen working actively in public places. In 2003, a youn immortal, freshly graduated from NYU, became the first of the newly discovered species in to finish the NYPD academy.

In 2008, Katherine Beckett was promoted to detective and moved from vice to homicide. She was the youngest woman in the police department to be promoted to detective.

She was also the first vampire.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Detective Kate Beckett had just got out of bed when her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. Still a little groggy from the long sleep, she picked it up and answered. “Beckett.” her voice drowsy and slightly raspy, so she cleared her throat in the attempt to sound more awake, but no matter how she tried, the day had been rough, she hadn’t slept well and coming out of the haze was hard that morning.

“Yo, boss. We’ve got a fresh one. Sun’s going down and safety zone starts in twenty minutes, need a ride?”

She yawned a _no,_ dragged and slurred, as Detective Esposito, one of the two other detectives in her team, told her the address of the murder scene. She wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper she found near the fridge and sighed, waiting for the coffee to be ready. “K, I’ll get there as soon as the sun goes down. Ryan?”

“On his way here. Looks like one you’ll like.”

She groaned. “Espo, the day I’ll like a homicide, sunlight won’t burn vampires. Give me thirty minutes.”

She closed the call and let the phone fall unceremoniously on the counter. “Still twenty minutes to safety zone,” she mumbled running her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her eyes. She hated spring and summer; long days, short nights and hours blocked inside buildings with vampire-friendly windows. Long live autumn and winter, with their long nights, days with clouds thick enough she could go out without fearing getting a third degree sunburn in ten minutes or less. Sometimes she envied werewolves. Then she remembered their biology and all the issues that came with their extremely painful transformation and she was happy with being a _bloodsucker_ , as people usually called vampires. After all, her main issue was the sun, taking the iron pills to control the anemia had never been a problem.

Then there was the mistrust that humans usually reserved for her, but she had got over that when she was a kid. Immortals were a minority, and they were treated as such. She had been lucky to be accepted the way she was when she applied for police academy and had actually built herself a career in the force. She knew other vampires had been subject of mobbing and had been pushed into resigning from their position or endure the oppression, but it wasn’t her case. Her boss at least was very open to immortal beings and while she was the only immortal at the precinct, no one had ever tried to hurt her. They had never made her feel unwelcome and she was grateful for that. Maybe they were just plain scared of her heightened senses and strength, but no one had ever been offensive in her regards.

Anyway, she didn’t bother. There were more important things in her life. One of them was solving this case, or at least getting to work on it before the sun rose. She didn’t want to get caught out of safety zone like two weeks before so she quickly showered and got dressed, finishing with the makeup just in time for the beginning of vampiric safety zone. Time to get the show on the road.

She parked the car half a block away from the scene and walked to the building. The uniform stationed at the main entrance told her to go to the penthouse. Right outside the elevator there was a small crowd of agents, both uniforms and plain clothes, and CSU investigators with white tyvek overalls on. Esposito, the second in command in her team, waved as soon as he spotted her in the corridor. “Yo Beckett, come here. The scene is down this hallway.”

Beckett followed him, with Ryan in two, and he showed them in, the body of a woman laid on a table in the dining room, covered in a mound of rose petals that preserved some of her modesty. A rare, thoughtful act from the murdered. Two brightly colored sunflowers covered her eyes. She knelt beside the table.

“Who are you?” she asked aloud, more to herself than to any other person in the room.

The Hispanic detective filled her in as they walked towards the apartment of the victim. “Allison Tisdale, twenty four, grad student at NYU, part of the social work program.”

Kate looked around. “Nice place for a social worker.”

“Daddy’s money...” mused Ryan, who stood beside Esposito checking the facts he himself had gathered during canvassing as he continued exposing what they knew about their victim.

“Neighbors called to complain for the loud music and when she didn’t answer they had the super check up.”

Unconsciously, she bit her lower lip, deeply lost in her thoughts. She looked around and noticed how only the four coordinate chairs looked out of place, scattered around the room instead of being lined up at each side of the table, while the rest of the house looked in pristine condition. Not a dust bunny, not a pillow off the couch. Nothing.

“No signs of struggle. He knew her.”

Suddenly, a memory sparked; she had seen that scene before, she just needed to remember where.

In that moment, doctor Lanie Parish, the medical examiner that usually followed their cases, arrived with her bag of tools in tow. The took a quick look around and, sassy as always, made one of her trademark sarcastic statements that made people cringe, considering they were in front of a dead body. “Even bought her flowers. Who says romance is dead?”

She stood up. “I do,” replied Kate, still looking at the victim. “Every Saturday night.”

“Well, lipstick wouldn’t hurt.”

Beckett shook her head and went back to the victim laying in front of her. “Just sayin’!”

Shaking her head, she took the conversation back to the original topic. “So what did he give her beside the flowers?”

“Two shots to the chest. Small caliber.”

The detective started pacing around the table, arms crossed, concentrated on her task. Everyone stood silent, Lanie kept doing her job, taking pictures of the body and slowly working around the rose petals to see if there were more interesting things on the body.

“Does this look familiar to anyone?”

Lanie, Esposito and Ryan shrugged their shoulders. “No but I’m not one for the freaky ones. Just give me an open and closed case so I can make my job and go home and I’m a happy man.”

“Yeah well… freaky ones are more interesting. They require more, they reveal more. Look at how the scene was prepared: she’s covered, modestly.”

“So?” asked Ryan.

“So despite all the effort to make it look like it, you won’t find any evidence of sexual abuse.” It was a statement. She was sure of it.

“And you get that only by looking at the body?”

She nodded. “Yes and the fact that I’ve seen this before.”

“You… have seen this before? Where?” still Ryan. Now the whole gang was looking at her, as if they had just seen a ghost.

“Roses on the body, sunflowers on the eyes…” she waited for them to reply. “Don’t you guys read?”

Still no answer, just shrugged shoulders and raised eyebrows. She huffed in annoyance. Shaking her head, she stood up. “Ryan, locate Richard Castle. We need to talk to him.”

\- - -

Not that far, on the rooftop of the skyscraper where Black Pawn held its offices, the most talked party of the month in New York was taking place; alcohol flowing in rivers, paparazzi flashing their cameras everywhere, women showing their boobs in every corner hoping for him to sign them. Richard Castle had released another book and, as usual, it was more a posh party for brainless gold diggers than a chance to celebrate the fact that he had just written a new book. And of course there was his ex-wife tailing him as he tried to have some fun for the first time in weeks. Spoilsports.

“You just had to kill him, didn’t you?” she asked, putting up a fake smile for a photograph with him.

“Are you asking me as my publisher or as my bloodsucking ex-wife?” he grumbled as the photographer walked away from them.

“You’re lucky I’m not a real vampire or your blood would be in my Bloody Mary for real.” she quipped. “Couldn’t you just give him a nice retirement plan? Cripple him? Have him join the damn circus? You killed the golden goose. Rick, are you even listening to me?”

Another grunt. He grabbed a chalice of champagne and turned towards the bar, looking for his mother and daughter. “Yes, I’m listening. Now, can I have some fun and enjoy my party? Derrick wasn’t the golden goose, I am!” He was finding it hard to keep up the appearances with Gina, she was being a bitch about it and only because they had just signed the divorce papers. “I’ve written other best sellers before. I can write a new one.”

His ex wife held his glass while he signed an autograph to a _fan_. “Oh my dear Richard Castle… does all this grumpy attitude come from the fact that you haven’t written a single line in months and your book was due nine weeks ago?”

“That’s absolutely not true,” he growled. “And who told you that?” The contents of his chalice were downed in one single, thirsty gulp and it landed on the tray of a waiter passing by.

“I have my sources. Now, do I have to threaten to get your advance back to get you out of your bad case of writer’s block?”

“I’m not blocked!” He exclaimed, suddenly defensive.

“You better. If I don’t see a manuscript on my desk in the next three weeks, Black Pawn is prepared to take actions against you. Your last advance was pretty consistent, you know.”

The sly smile on her face made him find the perfect comeback in less than a moment. “I’ve spent it divorcing you. You already have it.”

With that he left and strode towards the bar. The barman looked up and him waiting for his orders. “Scotch, on the rocks.” he asked. There was a small group of champagne flute beside him, he took one and handed it to his daughter, who was sitting at his right. The teenager was scribbling annotations on a notebook, studying.

“No Dad, thank you. I’m still fifteen, remember?”

“You’re an old soul.” He downed his drink and the one he had grabbed for her.

“Still, but my soul can wait. And you shouldn’t drink that much Dad. I know you can’t get drunk but they haven’t done enough studies on the result of alcohol abuse on werewolves.”

Castle snapped, shoving the tumbler and the flute on the counter with more force than required. The crystal of the flute cracked in three points, breaking it. “Alexis!”

The redhead shrugged her shoulders. “What Dad? It’s not like someone wants to hear our discussions!”

He looked around and she was right; there was nobody around, close enough to hear them and those who were had something better to think about than eavesdropping his conversation with his daughter. Looking around, he spotted his mother being her usual self while chatting with a distinguished man about her age, who appeared to be quite engrossed in the conversation. He chuckled. Martha Rogers was hard to ignore and could charm her way into every conversation if she spotted a good prey.

“Shouldn’t you be having fun like anyone else in the room?” he asked Alexis.

The teenager looked up from her schoolbooks. “Shouldn’t you be having fun? It’s your party after all.”

“Just another boring release party to add to the list. That’s why I killed Derrick: I didn’t have fun anymore! I knew everything that was going to happen in each scene, writing his character and his adventures had become like writing the grocery list. There were no more surprises, so predictable! Just like the questions at these parties! _How do you do that? Where do you get your ideas? Can you sign my chest?_ ” he mocked the tragically familiar annoying voice of some of his fans. “It became stale like twenty parties ago. I only someone would come up at me and ask me something new.”

Alexis was about to reply when she noticed the fake, strained smile on his face disappear. He twisted his head from side to side, sniffling the air. A waft of cherry-scented air filled his nostrils, capturing his attention. Someone that wasn’t in the room before was approaching.

“Mr. Castle?”

He turned around, pen in hand. “Where would you like it?” he said, a knee jerk reaction her had developed after twenty years of release parties and signing sessions, before the woman with the scented conditioner raised her hand and flashed her police badge.

“Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD, we need to talk about a murder that took place tonight.”

Richard Castle, self-proclaimed wordsmith, was at A loss for words. The woman in front of him was so beautiful he was blocked. He couldn’t speak, he could barely breathe. He jumped when Alexis sneaked her arms around his shoulders and took the pen from his hand. “That’s new.”

\- - -

It had been a long time since Richard Castle had sat in an interrogation room. And it had never been on the suspect’s side.

He didn’t exactly know what was going on, only that someone had died and the PD wanted to question him for some reason. Whatever it was, he had an alibi for that night anyway, so he was calm and composed, a tad bored and definitely intrigued by this Detective Beckett. Beautiful woman though a silent one. During the short trip from Black Pawn to the 12th Precinct, or at least he thought it was the 12th, they hadn’t spoken much. He had tried to gather more information about this murder, but her lips were sealed shut about it.

So he waited for any of the detectives he had seen as she had walked him through the homicide division. And while he waited, he tried to conjure every possible motive the police might have to drag him away from his launch party and put him in that room alone. But above all, he was kind of annoyed by the fact that they had placed him there all alone for the past forty five minutes.

He wondered what they were doing on the other side of the see-through mirror so he remained silent and listened closely to his surroundings. A human couldn’t probably hear much outside those walls, but an immortal like him could listen way beyond. He could hear them talking clearly, deciding what to do with him. He could hear three male voices in the adjacent room, one he had heard talking to Detective Beckett when they had arrived, but the other two were completely unknown to him. He understood though, by the tone of their discussion, that one of the voices belonged to a superior officer, probably the captain. Beyond that, muffled by the walls and the distance, he could hear the people in the bullpen bustling around, doing their jobs and the background traffic noise he always heard everywhere. He was so used to it he had to concentrate to actually listen to it.

Beyond the fine ears, his sense of smell was heightened too. On the way there he had picked up many different scents, from the cheap motor oil that reigned in the parking lot to the strong odor of antibacterial detergent used to clean the room he was sitting in. Not to mention the acrid smell of stale sweat, urine and God knows what else that came from the detention room on the first floor. They hadn’t gone near there, but the horrid smell had washed over him like a wave. He had to suppress his gag reflex to not throw up in the middle of the hall.

So he waited, patiently, watching as the battery of his phone dropped while he played Tetris on his phone to kill time, until he heard the sound of high heels approaching the door. He quickly closed his phone and pushed it back in his pocket, then laid his hands on the table. The door opened and Detective Beckett appeared in the frame, a thick file in hand.

“Mister Castle… quite a rap sheet for a best-selling author: disorderly conduct resisting arrest… it says you stole a police horse and that you were naked at the time.”

“Actually, I only borrowed it and for the nakedness part… it was spring.” Lamest joke ever, but it helped dissolve a little bit of tension. There was something in his woman that kept him on his toes, and he wasn’t sure if liked it or hated it.

“And every time the charges have been dropped,” she stated, sitting down in front of him.

He shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say, the mayor’s a fan but if it makes you feel better, I’d be happy to let you spank me.”

The roll of her eyes spoke volumes about what she thought about him being a jerk. Her words just confirmed it.

“Mister Castle, this whole bad boy charm thing… it only works with bimbettes and celebutantes. Me, I work for a living so this gives you two options: you’re either the person that makes my life easier or the person that makes my life harder and believe me, you don’t want to be the latter.”

“‘K”. was his only reply.

Detective Beckett took a photo out of the folder, the picture of a woman. “Allison Tisdale, daughter of Jonathan Tisdale.”

“She’s cute,” he added.

Kate hardly suppressed a groan. “She’s dead. Have you met her? Book launch party, signing session, charity event… anywhere.”

That was a weird question. “I might have but… neither her name or her face ring a bell, I don’t think so. I’m usually good with faces and unfortunately she doesn’t remind me of anything.”

One down, another one to go. “What about this guy? Marvin Fisk small claims lawyer.”

He tried to bite his tongue but couldn’t stop himself, really. “Usually my claims tend to be on the large side…”

Another eye-roll and this time it came with a soft yet steady groan of annoyance. The sudden instinct to bite his neck off surged in her veins and she had to fight it back as she ran the tip of her tongue on her pointy canine teeth that apparently ached to pierce his skin. She hated that feeling, that instinct to bite that came with her _condition_ , that hunger for blood she had ever since she could remember, and how it popped up at random moments of her life, most of all when she was in a foul mood. Like in that very moment.

“What’s this got to do with me?” he asked.

“Fisk was found murdered two weeks ago in his office. We didn’t put it all together until we found Allison Tisdale crime scene earlier this evening.” She put a photo of the scene in front of him.

From his jolt and slightly horrified grin that twisted his face for the briefest moment she knew he wasn’t the killer. She had already checked his alibi with his daughter, mother and publisher, that detail was just for personal satisfaction.

“That’s _Flowers For Your Grave_!” he exclaimed.

She placed another photo from a murder that had happened about a week earlier. “And this how we found Fisk, straight out of _Hell Hath No Fury_. You seem to have a deranged fan.”

Castle took the pictures in his hands and looked at them, both fascinated and disgusted. “You don’t look deranged to me,” he quipped, never looking away from the pictures.

Beckett frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“ _Flowers For Your Grave_ and _Hell Hath No Fury_? Those are… only hard core Castle groupies have read them, they’re not my best books. You must have read them a couple of times to make the connections between the murders and my books.”

She decided to ignore his tasteless joke and go on, although she felt the sudden need to hurt him. “Do any of your groupies write you fan mail?” He nodded. “Disturbing letters?”

“All my fanmail is disturbing, it’s an occupational hazard. I can have it delivered here in a couple of hours, if you can wait.”

“Good, because sometimes in cases like this we find out that the murderer tried to reach out to the…”

“...subject of his obsession,” he completed her sentence. “I’ve got quite an extensive knowledge of psychopathic behavior. Another occupational hazard. Do you think I could keep the pictures?”

Again, the instinct to bite rose. Instead of pushing her fangs in his neck though, she bit down her tongue, drawing a small drop of blood that managed to escape the tiny wound before it closed by itself in the span of a second. The coppery scent didn’t escape his extremely sensitive sense of smell.

“Why?” she asked, trying to sound as calm as possible.

“You know, I have a little poker ring and we’re going to meet tomorrow night. It’s mostly composed of mystery writers like Cannel, Patterson… this is like the Holy Grail for mystery writers like us! It’s a badge of honor!”

That was the last straw. She could bear his disrespectful manners towards her, but towards the victims? No way. She stood up, fast enough to make him jump a little bit in his seat and banged her hands on the table before leaning forwards towards him. She saw him holding his breath and move back a little bit; finally a sign of worry for his situation, his whole cocky attitude trembled a little bit.

“People are dead Mister Castle. If you’re going to joke about it, you can get the hell out of here now, since you’re not being helpful.”

He remained silent for a moment, before smiling slyly. “I didn’t ask for the bodies, just the pictures.”

The look on his face made her want to slap him. “I think we’re done here.”


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

As promised, the fanmail arrived two hours and fifteen minutes later, with a promptly thrown excuse from the pony express because he got caught in traffic. The fifteen boxes full of unopened mail came in the precinct creating a huge pile that would have taken her at least the whole night and part of the day to get through, looking for anything that even remotely reminded of the two homicides she was investigating on.

The detective silently thanked the NYPD policy that had made every window of every precinct vampire-proof.

She had been down at the morgue to hear some preliminary result from Lanie when she found the lobby of homicide filled with the plastic boxes and both Ryan and Esposito moving some of them into the break room, where they wouldn't have disturbed anyone.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Your writer there had all his fanmail sent here." Replied a uniform that was currently guarding a pretty beaten up suspect as he waited for his interrogation, while he pointed to the opened door of the captain's office.

She looked towards that direction and saw Richard Castle, this time out of the tailored suit and into a pair of worn jeans and a quite normal blue shirt, talking to Captain Montgomery. They seemed pretty close, they were both laughing and joking as if they had known each other for a long time. She swallowed a growl and approached the two men. Montgomery must have seen her because he turned and waved at her, gesturing to come closer.

"Ah Detective, nice to see you. Did Dr. Parish have anything for you?"

Kate shook her head. "Nothing conclusive, but the preliminary exams excluded sexual assault or anything else except for the two bullets. She already extracted them and sent them to ballistics to have them checked."

"Good. I dare to say you already met Mr. Castle here."

She nodded. "Yes, I had some time with him questioning about his books and his fans. I imagine all those boxes are your fanmail." she stated, looking at the writer.

"The unopened. I asked my PR to look through the opened mail but she's not in the city. She'll look through it as soon as she gets here."

Montgomery patted his shoulder. "Now Detective, I know you prefer to work alone but Castle has offered his collaboration to help you sort all that mail out."

She couldn't help but gasp at the thought. Working with that jerk? No way.

"Are you sure Sir?" she asked. "He's not a police officer I don't think…" She was trying to find a way out of it, she wouldn't work with Castle for all the gold in the world.

"He knows more than most of our recruits on how to deal with possible evidences. Don't worry, you'll be fine. I've asked the others to leave Interrogation Room 2 free for you, whenever you want to start, just walk in there."

With that, the captain pushed them out of his office and closed the door behind himself.

Beckett looked around, slightly nervous. "So… you want to help?"

Castle nodded. "It's the least I can do. This psycho is killing people inspired by my books, I can't really sit through it doing nothing."

Genuinely surprised by his confession, she walked towards the set up room with the writer at her heels. "That's surprisingly touching."

"I would have stayed even after we were done with the interrogation but I wanted to check on my daughter and my mother before they went to bed. Alexis has an important test next week and she's pretty engrossed with her books. I don't get much time with her lately so…"

They sat at the table, a box already opened on it. "Your daughter is that girl that sat behind you at the party?" she asked, handing him a pair of nitril gloves so they wouldn't leave fingerprints.

He nodded, snapping the gloves on. He took a handful of letters and started opening the first one. "Yes, that's her. I don't think you met my mother, she was busy talking to some guy when we left. Right, this one is a normal fangirl asking for a signed copy. Where do we put the garbage?"

They spent two hours working in silence, until Beckett noticed that Castle had slowed down, looking more carefully at each letter and stealing glances at her while she worked. At first she didn't mind, after all he was helping her and they had already gone through six boxes together. Doing it alone, it would have taken her more time than what she had. There was a killer at large and no way in hell she'd let him live free to kill again if she could avoid it.

But as his sideways looks came more often, she became more nervous, to the point she couldn't take it anymore. "Could you stop staring at me, please?"

Castle dropped the letter in his hands and stared at her, this time without a screen to hide behind. "Stop what?"

"You're staring at me like I'm some kind of guinea pig," She stated, quite angry. "Would you please stop doing that or at least tell me why?"

"I'm curious about your story," he replied. Simple as that. "There's something about you that intrigues me. Women, beautiful women usually become lawyers, not cops. You have no accent, that means Manhattan and that means money. You had options, lots of more socially acceptable options and yet you're here." He looked straight into her eyes and she felt that sense of unease increasing. "Something happened. Something happened but not to you. You're wounded but not that wounded. It was someone close to you, a friend or a parent. You're here to avenge that person."

As he spoke, she felt as if the good ol' wooden stake of lore was pushed through her heart, shattering it before her damn  _condition_  mended it in a second or two. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and tried to man up enough so her voice wouldn't tremble as she spoke. "Don't think you know me," she spat out. If he only knew the truth… She averted her eyes from him, then opened another envelope.

That was it. The stylized drawings of the two crime scenes and aimless jibbersh words filled the three notebook pages she found inside the packet. There was no sender address written but they quickly sent it away to process for fingerprints.

As they waited, dispatch called in another murder. Esposito and Ryan checked their watches but Beckett silently nodded. They still had time. It wasn't that late and she was sure she could come back to the precinct in time. End of safety zone was still three hours away and the crime scene wasn't that far. She had time.

With Castle in tow, they went and quickly realized the scene was inspired by  _Death Of A Prom Queen_ , one of his minor novels, just like the previous two. They were in the middle of canvassing for that homicide when a positive match came from a clear fingerprint CSU had found on the letter. Less than two hours later they had a culprit in detention. Turned out he was one of Allison Tisdale's cases. Kyle Cabbot suffered from pervasive developmental disorder, which often caused a person to get fixated on someone or something, in his case Castle's books.

Everything seemed to fit the forensic traces left on the bodies and the ritualistic way the murders had been carried out so they thought everything was fine, that they had closed it and they could go home.

Yet, Castle had some afterthoughts. If Kyle was indeed the murderer, all the discrepancies between his novels and the murder scenes were weird. Some things didn't match, some very important details that he hadn't left to the reader's imagination when he had wrote the novels, they were clearly printed on paper and a  _fan_  like Kyle would have never forget about them, his condition wouldn't allow him to forget them.

There was something wrong, and that sense of wrongness nagged at him as he tried to write, back in the coziness of his home, the next day. He stared at the cursor on the screen of his laptop, the first few lines of something typed in the text editor but nothing could take his attention away from the fact that something was wrong. So he devised a plan to get his hands on the file. And next evening he was there at the precinct, a box in his hands, waiting for Detective Beckett.

His gut feeling about her nature got stronger when he noticed that she had arrived at her desk twenty minutes after the beginning of the vampire safe zone.

She found him leaning against his desk, surprised by his showing up like that after they had closed the case. Behind him, on her desk, sat the files and all the paperwork that would have occupied her night. "Mr. Castle, what are you doing here?" she asked, a genuine amazed tone coloring her voice.

"Well, I came here to thank you for the opportunity you gave me yesterday. And since you're a fan, here's an advanced copy of my last book." He handed her the white box he held. "You won't have to wait for the official release date."

Beckett opened the box and found the new book from her favorite author (because she had to admit that although he was a jackass he was indeed her favorite author) she gasped. "Wow…" she whispered. "Thank you."

"You don't even have to ask. I hope I'll see you again, sometimes."

"I doubt it. You and I are worlds apart, but I'll enjoy the book. Thank you."

Without warning, he leaned closer to her and kissed the corner of her mouth. A spark of disbelief ran through her body and she was stuck there, as if her shoes had been glued to the floor.

When he moved back, she could only nod as he passed beside her and walked to the elevator. She turned around and smiled, thinking that maybe beneath that absolutely idiotic behavior there was a good person. Maybe a bit of a jerk, but a good person. She watched him walk away and out of her life - thank God - forever.

Taking a deep breath, she sat at her desk and placed the book in one of the drawers before placing her gun there too, when she noticed that the pile of files that had made a small tower of paperwork related to the Tisdale case were missing. She looked around to Esposito's and Ryan's desks, looking for the missing folders, but nothing.

She rushed to the elevator, but it had already gone down to the lobby. Castle was probably on a taxi already headed wherever he wanted to go.

"Damn it," she cursed. In long, angry strides, she walked back to the desk and made a phone call. "This is Detective Kate Beckett, 12th Precinct Homicide, I need an APB for Richard Castle. Yes, the writer. He stole police evidences from custody. Yes. Thank you."

The scorned detective sat back on her chair and huffed an irritated sigh. The APB would allow them to find him, at some point, but only if he remained outside. By the time the bulletin would have reached the whole department he would have probably found some place safe to stay. While waiting for any sightings for the novelist, she tried the usual cop work: she sat down and made more phone calls and managed to get hold of his house phone number. That was one hour after he had disappeared in the hallway. His mother picked up, and when asked why the police was looking again for her son, Beckett managed to dodge the question, but at least his mother, Martha, had given her some clues to find Castle. The New York Public Library.

"Richard Castle!" She bellowed, not caring for the rule of silence. "You're under arrest for obstruction of justice!"

He raised his head from the photos laid in front of him, smiling. He had heard her walking into the building when she was still on the ground floor. He knew he didn't have much time to look at the file he had sneaked out of the precinct before she would find him. That woman was a hunter, she had something that made her a skilled hunter in the way she did her job. Other people would need more time to get a hold of a suspect, she only needed one hour.

And he suspected his mother had something to do with it.

She cuffed him, not without a tad of mirth in the way she read him his Miranda Rights, then pushed him downstairs and into her car, the file now back in her hands resting on the passenger seat.

"You got the wrong guy," said Castle when she started the car.

The detective shook her head. "What makes you think that?"

"The details," he replied, cryptically.

"You mean the details he got wrong? Like the kind of rose and the dress of Kendra Pitney? Kyle Cabbot has a mental disability, Castle. He washes dishes in a diner to pay the rent, do you really think he could afford every minor detail to re-enact your novels?"

"He has PDD, he would be extremely meticulous about details. He wouldn't miss two major details like those. Not the dress at least. Maybe the roses, they can't be found this time of the year, but the dress… also, first a random man, then his social worker then another random person? I'm sorry but it makes no sense, even if our guy has a mental disability."

They remained silent for a while at a red light, it gave her enough time to think about what he had said and feel her innate perceptivity tingle like a sixth sense to the point she decided to listen to him., and Castle was amazed to see her turn in the opposite direction. "Hey, where are we going?"

She gestured him to shut up while she pulled up her phone and composed a number. "Good evening, this is Detective Kate Beckett, I'm in charge of Mr. Tisdale's daughter murder. Is he still in his office, I'd like to speak to him. Yes. Now? Thank you very much, we'll be here in ten minutes."

"Where are we going?" he asked again, leaning closer to her seat. Not exactly easy, with his hands cuffed behind his back.

"You and your doubts. You started making sense. We're going to meet Allison's father."

It wasn't only him. He was in big part responsible for her change of heart, but after all she had already decided to look a little bit into her family because the victim was so high profile she needed to double check. With a disabled culprit, the lawyer would of course try the road of mental instability and look for every possible quibble in the way the investigation had been brought on. If she didn't check on the family, most of all such a wealthy and important family, she'd be crucified during the trial.

During the brief visit, she noticed how Castle was more than proper while she questioned Jonathan Tisdale, just listening and looking around, completely different from the poking and prodding he had been doing with her ever since the first interrogation. He spoke only when they got out and sat back in the car, headed back to the precinct.

"Did you notice it?"

Beckett started the engine. "What?"

"He's sick. There were pictures of him in his office and he was bigger. But he didn't look like workout thin, he looked more sick thin, and he had a hair piece. Noticed how he kept touching his hair? It's new to him, he's not used to it," also, the faint stench of hospital still hung on his skin, but that wasn't a detail he wanted to share.

"So you think he's sick? Like cancer or something like that?"

He nodded. "Yes. I've never been around cancer patients but I've done some book research throughout the years to know a couple of things. He's dying."

"And if he's dying maybe his son wanted to get his hands on the whole inheritance. He may have used Kyle's disability and fixation on your books to frame him."

"That's what I thought. Problem is, he didn't get the details right. I bet that if you go and ask him he'll mess up something else."

She glanced at her watch. He couldn't help but notice that it wasn't the type of watch you see hanging at the wrist of a woman, it was instead an old Omega Speedmaster designed for men, with a thick leather band and a black quadrant. Nothing flashy, definitely classy, the kind of watch you see at the wrist of a pricey lawyer. He was sure there was a story behind that watch, probably related to the parent she lost. Her father, apparently.

"It's too late, Tisdale said his son works in constructions, he won't be in his office now."

"So what?"

"So I'll send Esposito and Ryan to question him. I'll do a background check on him tonight."

There was a moment of silence between them, filled only by the low rumble of the car and the usual bustle outside the windows.

"Come on, I'll take you home." she stated, filling the thick stillness of the car.

"May I come tomorrow night? If this… Harrison Tisdale is really the murderer, I'd like to know."

"Only if you promise to behave. No more stealing evidence and files."

"Scout's honor."

She stopped at another red light.

"And if we're going to arrest him, you stay in the car. Alright?"

He sighed. "I told you. Scout's honor!"

Next afternoon, the three detectives and the writer who had insisted on coming at the precinct earlier that morning, were all rounded up at her desk, discussing what Esposito and Ryan had learned while eating Chinese takeout as late lunch.

"So we go and ask him where he was at the time of each murder and there he is, ready with a reply. He didn't check, he didn't ask the date… he picks his passport with three neat stamps on it. Damn Beckett you were right. He would mess up again."

She looked at Castle, knowing that those were his words, but he didn't say anything. He just shrugged his shoulders. "Fake stamps?"

"Oh no," interjected Ryan. "Very real. We double-checked. He was out of the States when the victims were killed."

Beckett shook her head. "Well, with his resources, although his business isn't exactly navigating in calm waters, getting a fake passport wouldn't be that hard. We just need to find it. Or them, because he could always have more fake IDs, you never know."

"So let me get this straight; you did a background check yesterday night and found out that Harrison Tisdale needs money fast but apparently daddy won't just sign the check. And you also found out that Tisdale Senior is indeed sick and that he's undergoing chemotherapy." Beckett nodded. "And now you're ready to ask for a search warrant."

"If we find a judge willing to sign it. I mean, it's a high profile case, not many judges want their signature on the search warrant for Jonathan Tisdale's son, he's highly respected and influential with politics, you know," stated Beckett, looking at the already printed request she had compiled as soon as they had learned about the major slip in Harrison's tale.

Castle shook his head and pulled his phone out, punching a speed dial button. "No need to worry about it." He waited a little bit before a woman picked up. "Hi Carla, it's Rick. Is he still in? That would be great, thank you. Bob, hey there man how are you?" he shouted, clearly happy to be talking to his friend.

"Is he talking to the major?" asked Ryan.

Beckett's face showed all her perplexity. "Apparently…"

One minute later Castle was sitting in her car and she was driving at neck breaking speed towards the DA offices to block the last judge still at work and have them sign the warrant, while Ryan and Espo gathered some uniforms for the support team. They had been in the police force long enough to know that sometimes, even if it was only a search warrant and not an arrest, people freaked out and did stupid things like shooting at the police or running away.

They always ran prepared.

So prepared, they also had a special car with UV screened windows that Kate could use even in broad daylight. Short exposure wouldn't hurt her, less than ten minutes were more than enough to get out of the car, into the building, perform the search while staying the shade and then go back to the car. Her super-boosted healing abilities would have healed all the damage done to her skin by the sunlight and no one would have noticed anything. More than ten minutes or direct exposure to sunlight though… while it wasn't lethal, it was extremely painful. She didn't exactly want to recall those days when she tried to force herself out in the sun to live like a normal teenager, with no avail. The physical pain was still branded in her memory, and not in a good way.

"Remember what you told me yesterday?" she asked Castle before she got out of the car.

"What? About staying in the car?"

Beckett nodded. "Yes. We don't know what will happen, we have a support team but I don't want you to get hurt. OK?"

"Scout's honor, alright. I'll stay in the car."

"Good." The detective then stormed out of the vehicle and inside the building. The confident stride made her look sexy as hell while she briskly walked in the lobby of the commercial building.

Once the support team was deployed behind her, she banged on Harrison's office door. "Harrison Tisdale, open up, we have a search warrant."

She could hear some noises inside, a machine running and stuff being thrown on the floor, maybe by someone running away. When she heard a glass breaking and the loud clank of someone falling on the emergency stairs, she moved back from the door and Esposito kicked the door open. As they stormed in they saw a shadow running down the metallic stairs.

Without caring for her health, Beckett rushed out the window and looked down. As she did, she pointed her gun towards the fleeting suspect, who had a plastic bag in one hand and a large caliber gun in the other while he clumsily rushed down to the street level.

"Beckett!" She heard Castle scream. He had come out of the car, but was standing beside it. "Beckett he's running!"

"I know!" she shouted back. "Harrison Tisdale stop! You're under arrest!"

He didn't stop at all, rather he ran faster. As she followed him, already feeling the unpleasant tingle of the sunlight on her skin, she also noticed that Castle was running after Tisdale. "Damn," she whispered, moving a bit faster, but still in a human range of speed. The urge to just jump down two stories, knowing that it wouldn't hurt her more than the sun, was threatening to overcome her rational thinking. She usually followed procedure to the last line But the urge to just jump over Tisdale and arrest him before the first sunburn would appear on her skin was definitely appealing.

Damn, Castle was fast. For such a big man he was really, really fast. She had just reached the entrance of the alley where Harrison had run trying to find safety and she saw Castle tackling the guy like a professional linebacker and taking him down to the ground. Tisdale tried to fire, but he had left the safety on. Good for them.

The writer-turned-cop for a day and the suspect were scuffling on the dirty pavement when she reached them, handcuffs in one hand and gun trained on the suspect. Castle managed to disarm him with brute force and topple him so Tisdale was laying prone on the ground. He held his hands behind his back so Beckett could cuff him.

"Tell me you saw that!" He jumped on his feet, thrilled like a kid on Christmas day. He was really excited by the whole thing.

"Oh yeah, I saw that," she replied. One of the uniforms of the tactic support arrived in that moment and took custody of Tisdale, reading him his rights. When her hands were free and her gun holstered, she shoved him by the shoulders, pushing him against the wall of the building. "What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed!"

"The safety was always on!"

"I know that but… damn!" An intrusive ray of sunlight hit her squarely in the eyes, a particularly tender spot for people with her condition. She retreated from the lit area of the alley, shielding her eyes. She couldn't hold back a pain-filled moan as the light still burned her over-sensitive nerve endings.

Then she felt something being placed over her head and shoulders, shading her from the bright afternoon light. She opened an hurting eye and saw half of Castle as he protected her from the sun with his jacket.

"You suffer from vampire-related porphyria, don't you?"

For a moment, Beckett whimpered still in pain but also from the surprise, before she regained her composure. At least he hadn't said  _you're a vampire_. She hated that name.

"That obvious?"

"Yeah well, I had my suspects even before. You were only out during the safety time zone so… it was just a matter of doing the math and although I chose a more artistic career, I can still add two and two," he explained, calmly. No one had ever had that reaction upon learning the truth about her…  _nature._ People either freaked out or were morbidly obsessed with it, showering her with pointless questions and stupid remarks. When they didn't decide to turn to being plainly offensive.

She chuckled and stood up straight. "You know a whole lot about vampires," she asked. The pain had subsided, it wasn't as sharp as a moment earlier.

"I've done a lot of research in the past few years. When the whole thing was revealed, I was a kid and found it fascinating," he replied. "I've kept up to date with the newest scientific discoveries about both conditions. You know, there's also lycanthropy."

"Oh, I know all too well," she took the jacket from him and started walking towards her car. "Come on, let's get somewhere a little less sunny."

They silently walked out of the alley, some meters away from the small group that surrounded Tisdale as they pushed him in one of the cars.

"Why don't we go out?" asked Castle, out of the blue. "There's a nice cafe not too far from here, it makes delicious coffee and their pastries are awesome. We could debrief each other."

Lamest pick up line ever, and they both knew it. He glanced at her quick enough to catch her biting her lower lip, a gesture he had seen her doing more than once, both when stressed and when being plainly flirty. Like in that moment.

"So I can be one of your conquests?"

"Or you could be mine." Castle opened the door of her car; the one with screened windshields and let her sit down.

"I don't think we could work."

Beckett gave him his jacket back. "Too bad." He said. "It could have been great."

Another lip bite, this time, it was just flirty and not stressed. It turned him on like hell. "You have no idea."

Then she closed the door and started the engine, making it growl like a feral animal, then rushed away to follow her culprit to processing.

But the writer had another ace up his sleeve. And a surge to write that couldn't compare to anything he ever had. He pushed the Mayor's speed dial button again and waited. It was a short conversation, but long enough to obtain what he wanted.

Four hours and half later, he was back at the precinct, hiding behind the door as Detective Beckett tried to talk herself out of his nicely devised plan that would have allowed him to shadow her.

He couldn't help but smile at the thought. Shadowing a person that lived in the shadows. Gina thought he was blocked, that he couldn't write anymore?

Detective Kate Beckett had just unblocked the words from his brain. And two chapters of his new book had already been sent. A new character had been created and a new novel was on the way. He just needed to do some research.

Her shocked expression when she turned towards him was more than amusing. He delivered his trademark smoldering eyebrow raise but couldn't help but feel a shiver running down his spine, an inexplicable sensation of cold, as if she had thrown a bucket of iced water down his back with one killer glare, a fierce look that made him falter, although he tried to look sharp and confident despite of the sudden chill. There was something more in that woman that intrigued him.

That woman was a mystery and he was going to solve it.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

A couple of days later Castle was back at the precinct to sign the pile of documents and waivers the police department required to allow him to follow her.

She had spent those last few days of freedom brooding at her desk, fillling paperwork. Ryan and Esposito, hiding behind their computer monitors, were looking forward to see a control freak like her dealing with an oddball like Castle. She hated being forced into things. Seeing her being followed by a nine year old on a sugar rush, as she had called him, would be better than Shark Week. They were sure of it.

So there she was in the corner of the conference room, staring at the writer as he signed the papers he was handed, sporting a death glare that would have scared away everyone in his situation, and yet he remained. He signed every single sheet, one by one, completely ignoring her hostility towards him and this whole, freaky idea of having a civilian following her around town solving crimes.

She felt like being thrown in an episode of Murder She Wrote, with reversed roles. To be completely honest she’d prefer being shadowed by Angela Lansbury and her British humor.

“Is he finished signing stuff so I can shoot him?”

She heard the softest chuckles coming from him, so low she was sure no one else had heard it. It was an amusement-filled chuckle, as if he was actually making that sound willingly so low that only she could pick it up. It was that kind of smartass behavior that made her long to sink her teeth into his neck and be done with this idiotic situation. The only thing that stopped her was the fact that killing him would cause him stop writing his novels.

Luckily for her, Esposito came to her rescue when he called her with a fresh body drop. Quickly, she moved to follow her team mate out of the precinct to the crime scene, only to be stopped by the novelist.

“Wait, we’ve got a body?” he asked, lifting his eyes from the dotted line he was signing.

“No, I’ve got a body, you have paperwork!” she exclaimed, closing the door behind her.

Still a few more minutes of freedom.

Right from the crime scene, things were weird. Sarah Manning, a full-time nanny for an upper-class family, had been murdered and her body had been hidden in one of the laundry room dryers. The woman that had found the body, an elderly lady only interested in doing her laundry, was still sitting in a corner of the hall, tended to by paramedics that were keeping her on oxygen. The shock could have killed her, that was for sure.

She scanned the room as she entered; nothing looked out of place, there was blood, although a small amount - she had been able to pick up the scent from outside the building, thanks to her enhanced senses. No signs of struggle or of a fight except for a bleach bottle out of place. A normal laundry room, like thousands in the city. It reminded her of the laundry room in her own building, with that mix of mold, detergent, and overheated machinery smell so intense that sometimes it made her gag. Nothing strange about the room, except for the dead body in the dryer.

“Hey Ryan, what do we have?”

“Who knows. Old lady comes down to move her clothes to the dryer and finds the girl. Nearly had a heart attack.”

She nodded, looking inside. The victim was a young girl, early twenties at most. “Did she live here?”

“No, she only worked here, for the Petersons’ on the 12th floor. They’ve been alerted, you can go upstairs when you want to interrogate them.”

“Thank you Ryan. Who’s the ME in charge?”

“Lanie,” answered Esposito. “She’s coming up, there’s a bit of a traffic jam on the way here.”

“Right. I’ll call her later. You two can deal with canvassing while I go and question the Petersons?” she asked, already moving towards the door.

“No problem. Where’s the writer?”

The detective shook her head. “Still at the precinct signing his Last Will and Testament, if I’m lucky.”

No, she wasn’t so lucky. The wanna-be-cop writer was waiting for her with that smug smile on his face that truly annoyed her to hell.

“Finished paperwork?” she asked, walking towards the elevator.

“When the Captain told me you had Nanny McDead I started signing at the speed of light. The lawyer couldn’t believe a man could write so fast. So? Thoughts?”

“A woman died. For now that’s all we know. I’m going to question the family she worked for now.”

“That’s so cool…” he said, gloating like a kid in a candy store.

“Castle, listen very carefully. There’s a dead person, a person that had a family and was probably close to her employers, not to mention the kid. Please, don’t be so happy about it,” she ordered him as she pushed the button and the elevator doors closed.

Immediately, Castle straightened his face and became extremely serious. “Alright.”

The questioning went fine, quick and painless, a normal witness questioning like many others. They had Sarah’s bag, her address and the name of her ex-boyfriend. It wasn’t nine o’clock yet when they got back to the precinct and although Lanie was taking her time with the autopsy, they had enough time to check her phone list through her service provider, and found several short calls from Brent Johnson. They all looked like short voicemail messages. Given the type of attack and the quick attempt to hide the body, Beckett and her team suspected a crime of passion, probably triggered by jealousy.

Who else fit the role of the jealous killer better than an ex-boyfriend?

After all, the Petersons had said the couple had broken up about a month before, although they weren’t specific about the circumstances of the break up, but checking on him wouldn’t hurt. They had to wait until next day though. It was too late to call him there for questioning, although they had enough reasons to do so, they weren’t enough to call him in at that hour.

“You can go home Castle, nothing’s going to happen tonight,” she told him when she realized he had resorted to tinkering with stationery he had found on her desk to keep himself entertained.

“What if the warrants for his phone records and her voicemail come in when I’m home?”

“It’ll take at least six hours. Go home to your family, I’m sure your daughter will appreciate it.”

He shrugged his head. “Nah, she’s fine. She actually likes when I’m not at home. Less noise around the loft.”

“Then what are you going to do? Build a castle out of paperclips?”

“Why not? Esposito and Ryan went home, you’d be here all alone. What if I just want to keep you company?”

She shook her head and kept typing the request for the warrant. “Thanks, but you can go, really. I’m fine here, with the night shift.”

He didn’t reply, at least not immediately. He stared at her for a while, lost in his thoughts. She kept doing her job, then sent the warrant request via email to be evaluated, but now it was just a waiting game with the ADA office. “Now we wait.”

“It’s not the ex-boyfriend.”

Beckett nodded. “I know,” she revealed. “He wouldn’t have taken the phone, it would have lead straight to him. I’ve dealt with stupid murderers but never this stupid. He might know something, that’s why I’m calling him in. If I want him to tell me something though, I need some leverage.”

“And an ex-boyfriend doesn’t call sixteen times in a week only to hear how she’s doing. Right… what do you think?”

“At this point, I don’t think. I can guess, but I don’t like to throw wild theories around, not when the ME still has to call in for preliminary results.”

Right on cue, her direct phone line rang. Quickly, she picked up. “Beckett. Right. We’ll be right there,” she closed the call. “Come, Lanie’s done with the autopsy.”

\- - -

“That was fast!” Castle’s voice echoed in the autopsy room, while he donned the protective gear.

“That’s because I’m not exactly done. I still have to proceed with the internal organ exams but I was able to determine the cause of death with x-rays,” replied the ME.

Sarah Manning’s body was still on her table, a light blue sheet draped over her from the neck down to cover the Y incision that Lanie had just performed before she buzzed them in from upstairs.

It was the first time Castle had seen a dead body. An opened dead body. He wasn’t ready for the dank, sickly sweet and coppery smell that hung in the room. Like Beckett, he had a very hard time trying to hold back the urge to rush out of morgue and breathe the fresh, polluted air of the city night. And maybe throw up their dinner too.

To say it was disgusting was an understatement. He was sure Beckett was used to it, after so many years in the force, but for him? Nightmare fuel. Contrary to popular belief, werewolves weren’t morbidly attracted to blood. Most of them hated the smell of it, and if it was old and on its way to decomposition it made them sick. He crossed his arms around his chest to hide the deep breaths he was taking and not give away his distress, but deep down he was fighting really hard to control his gag reflex. He let the detective do the talking, because he could barely control his breathing.

“So? Cause of death?” asked Beckett.

“Subdural bleeding. Someone pushed her and she fell or she was hit with something really heavy that knocked her unconscious. The killer must have thought she was dead and hid her in the dryer. The heat caused the bleeding to speed up and she died. With medical help she’d probably still be alive.”

Castle saw Beckett shut her eyes tightly for a moment. He was sure that if she had the chance to voice her thoughts, a long line of curses would come out. Knowing that the victim could saved must be tough.

“Anything else?”

The ME nodded. “There were no signs of struggle except for the bruising here,” she pointed at the victim’s temple. “And she had sex not long before she died, but the heat makes it hard to pinpoint when.”

“Sex?” asked the detective.

“I’ll explain how it works later,” stated Castle, behind her. Beckett turned around and if looks could kill, she’d need a license for that face. He took a mental note of that expression for future reference.

“Yes, she had sex. Unfortunately, there were no DNA traces, meaning the guy wore a condom.”

“Traces of rape?”

“Hard to say. There were no vaginal lacerations or bruises, and as I said there were no signs of struggle.”

“She knew the guy. Alright. Thank you Lanie, we’ll wait for the final results.”

When they went back to the bullpen, everything was silent, unmoving. Nightshift was usually extremely calm except for special nights, like full moon or national holidays and with less than ten detectives in place, there wasn’t really much to do.

They sat at her desk, silent and she checked her emails. Nothing had come from the ADA offices. It was too late, all the judges were already off duty. It was only them, left to wait.

“Should we call it a night and go home?” he asked.

Beckett shrugged her shoulders. “No, I don’t want to waste my timeframe of freedom idling at my place until the sun goes down again. Here at least I can work and be functional.” She grabbed the copy of Sarah’s phone list and took a quick look at it. “But you can go, if you want. It’s late, you must be tired.”

“Nothing that some coffee can’t cure. I’ve slept enough last night after I finished three chapters from the new book.”

“Inspiration has struck again?”

“It never went away. I just needed a new character to channel it. I just got tired of Derrick’s hyperbolic adventures around the world. I’ve spent more than ten years writing about him… I felt it was time for a change.”

“Does this change have a name?” she asked, curious. After all, she was getting free spoilers straight from the source, it was a too good of an opportunity to miss it.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not yet. I’m typing asdfghjkl instead of her name, but I know she’s going to be smart, beautiful… the kind of woman you would picture as a DA, not a cop. Can I have a look at that phone list?”

She handed him the sheets and leaned back on her chair, stretching her neck and arms in the vain attempt to release some of the tension that tightened her muscles. She needed to go for a run. Or find someone willing to spar with her. It had only been two days since her last outing for a jog and she already felt the physical need for it, but that thing with Castle shadowing her had tampered with her routine. At least he was behaving better than the first time.

“Have you checked this number?” he asked, pointing at a few lines he had underlined with a blue pen.

Beckett looked at it and shook her head. “Not yet. I can search for the owner.” She typed the digits and started the search. “Chloe Richardson. Lives in New York but she’s not a native. DMV states she lives in Queens. A friend?”

Castle was silent for a moment, thinking about what to say. “Maybe. I see more texting than actual calls so… yes, maybe a friend but not so close.”

“We’ll ask the ex-boyfriend.”

“So? What do we do now?” asked Castle.

The detective pinched the bridge of her nose and looked at her watch. “We wait for morning. Unfortunately, the world’s not a place for vampires.”

“Yet,” he said, fiddling with a paperclip.

That reply intrigued her. “What do you mean?”

The writer shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing… just that maybe one day science will find a way to allow people with your condition to live like any other person on the planet, without being forced to hide and live only during night.”

“We have tricks Castle, it’s not like we’re going to burn to a cinder as soon as we get out in the sun… we’re not the creatures from the books. Also, there’s another strain of porphyria that’s way worse.”

He nodded. “Oh I know, I did my research. But… completely unrelated to the subject… I wonder why people that can afford not to work or work reduced hours decide to hire a nanny. They lose so much of their children’s life that I doubt they know them at all.”

Beckett fumbled a little bit with a pen. “I don’t know Castle, my parents were pretty present when I was a kid, but those were other times. What did you do with your daughter?”

“I was a stay-at-home dad by choice and by craft. I was already an accomplished author when she was born so when Alexis’ mother filed for divorce and moved to Los Angeles I had all the time I wanted to take care of her. When I had some obligation that forced me out, my mother would stay with her, and there was this teenage girl that lived downstairs, but only when Alexis was older. I never thought about getting a nanny. I thought: I’m lucky enough to have a job that allows me to be with my child. How can I let this opportunity go to waste?”

“How many times have you exactly been married?” she asked, out of curiosity.

“Twice. Signed the papers to finalize the second one three months ago. You?”

“Me? No, Castle, when it comes to marriage, I’m more of a one-and-done kind of girl,” she revealed, completely sincere. That man had the ability to make her want to talk, even though she wasn’t sure yet why. There was something in him that intrigued her, like no one before.

“Well, given your condition, you have all the time in the world to find the right one.”

And then he said things like that and all her willing to talk flew away.

The pen in her hand flew so close to his ear he could feel the air moving against his skin, for the briefest second. “Right when I thought you could sustain a civil conversation.”

“And you haven’t seen the best of me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can’t wait.”

Around seven in the morning, the precinct started getting busy. People came in, phones started ringing and the sun peeked through the skyline, albeit covered by a thick layer of clouds that threatened to release a large amount of rain later that afternoon. The warrant for Brent Johnson’s phone list and Sarah Manning’s voicemail came through while Castle had gone out for breakfast. The same moment he set foot in the bullpen with two to-go coffees and two pastries, Beckett received the email with the audio files for Sarah’s voicemail. They both couldn’t help but smile when they heard them.

\---

Despite her best efforts and Castle’s attempts to act like the cool cop, Brent Johnson had little to nothing to tell them. Beckett could always call him back if further investigations would reveal his involvement in the matter, they hadn’t actually wasted two hours after all. They had to check on Chloe Richardson; according to Brent, Chloe, Sarah and himself were old friends from college and they knew each other pretty well, so he knew where she lived and where she worked. Since both Esposito and Ryan were out, she decided to take care of it herself.

“Are you sure you can come out? I mean, it’s still outside the safe zone,” asked Castle during the elevator run.

She nodded. “Yes. The clouds are thick enough to act as a filter. I might have some redness on exposed skin if we stay out too long, but it won’t be a great inconvenience.”

“What about your eyes? From what I’ve seen the other day, they’re quite sensitive.”

He managed to bite his tongue before he could add and beautiful.

She pulled a pristine pair of black Ray Ban Wayfarer from her coat pocket. “Custom made. High UV filter. Same lenses used for snow goggles.”

“Resourceful… I love it.”

The doors opened and they walked through the busy lobby. “Come on, Brent said Chloe goes to the park every day before 1-PM, we need to hurry.”

They found Chloe at a park near the building where both she and Sarah worked, just like Brent had told them. After asking another nanny to watch over her kid, they moved towards a bench far from the playground.

“You’re here to ask about Sarah, right?”

She started questioning the nanny, asking the usual questions and trying to look around for hints of lies on her part. The young girl spoke freely, answering every question promptly, sometimes too promptly but one of her friends and coworkers had just been murdered, being nervous talking to a cop was more than understandable. And yet…

Beckett wrote everything down on her notepad. “Anything else? You work in the same building, is there a chance your employers might know anything about what happened?”

Chloe was startled by that question, as if she didn’t want to answer it. “Not that I know of. I mean, Ian was probably at home but Diana was at work when it happened. I was here with Becca.” She explained.

Beckett stopped writing midsentence, just for a fraction of second before she started scribbling again. Something wasn’t right with what she was saying, and a quick glance up to Castle told her he had got to the same conclusion. There was something wrong with her tale. There was something about Chloe Richardson that went beyond the grieving friend and co-worker, suddenly she was jittery and tended to babble a little bit as she spoke. Also, she had started sweating when asked about her employers, but there was one tiny detail that she could pick up: she smelled of fear. Those were all signs that told her she was lying.

When she started feeling her skin itch a little bit, the detective told Chloe she would call in case she needed to ask her more question and she and Castle went back to the car. As soon as the screened windows blocked the damaging UV rays, the few that managed to escape the thick layer of clouds, she felt better. She relaxed on the seat with a long sigh of relief.

“Hurts a lot?” asked Castle.

“No, not much. “ She told him. “It’s more of an itch, it’s bearable. It would hurt a lot without the clouds, I would be risking third degree burns, staying outside too long.”

“Good. What do you think?”

“About Chloe? That she’s lying. She said she was here when Sarah was killed, but we never told her when Lanie estimated the crime had been committed. She’s involved, but I don’t know how.”

“You think a tiny girl like her could have killed Sarah?”

He phone buzzed. “I’ve seen way worse,” she stated, pulling the phone out. “Hey Ryan, got anything?”

“Esposito and I managed to pull the CC footage from the doorman. We watched it and saw nothing weird. About forty minutes before the estimated TOD we saw Sarah going down to the laundry room. She never came back,” explained the detective.

“Alright, we’ll get something to eat and then we’ll check the building out,” she ended the call and looked at Castle. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Most of it,” he downplayed it a little bit. “And your plan sounds fine. I’m quite hungry, to be honest.”

She fired up the engine. “Oh I know, I could hear your guts grumbling while we were talking to Chloe. Come on, time for your first real cop meal.”


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Beckett drove back to the precinct but stopped a couple of blocks away. She miraculously found a parking space close enough to her destination then killed the engine. “Come on. I hope you like cheeseburgers.”

Castle lit up like a Christmas tree. “Cheeseburgers? You’re kidding right?!”

“Good to know. Now come.”

They got out of the car and walked inside a small restaurant he had never been to, clearly frequented by cops. The sign outside told him the name was Remy’s, it looked like one of the last family owned fast food restaurants in town, neat, clean and deeply rooted in the past. The waitress behind the bar greeted them with a smile. Beckett was a loyal customer, she often came down for a quick meal or to pick up the take out for the team, so people that worked there knew her. The young girl waved at them to take a seat at any table they wanted. Most of the lunch crowd had already come and gone, so they had time and space to eat and then go back and check on Chloe’s employers.

As they sat down, Castle relaxed and took the menu from the corner of the table. He thought Beckett would do the same, instead she took her notepad out of the inner pocket of her jacket and went straight to review her notes. He spied on her from the menu, saw the determined look on her face, the way she lightly picked at the skin of her thumb without scraping, or how she tapped with the disposable pen on the scribbled notes, as if to mark them better.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

She took a deep breath and straightened in her seat. “Yes, except that I need a gallon of coffee and I’m hungry enough to eat a raw steak.”

“Was that a nod to your ancestors in literature or you’re just really, really hungry?”

She shook her head and smiled. “Just hungry. And I love my steaks rare, that’s true, but it has nothing to do with my condition. What’s your choice?”

“You mentioned cheeseburgers, they must be good so I’ll try one. And a gallon of coffee for me too,” he replied, putting down the menu.

“Good to know. Now tell me; where is this thing going?”

Castle was about to reply when the waitress came and stopped him before he could. She took their order and Beckett’s deadly stare went back at him. “So?”

“What do you mean where?” he asked. “I need to do research, I want the authenticity in this new book I’m writing, not the partially made up stuff I put in my old books. I can’t just look it up on Wikipedia.”

Two steaming cups of coffee appeared in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere. The waitress came and went, saying nothing.

“Why follow me? There are hundreds of other detectives with less complicated time schedules than mine. You came to the precinct last night and didn’t even call your daughter this morning to say hi before she got to school, and last night you were wondering how people could rely on nannies to take care of their children.”

Her argument made sense. But so did his reply.

“I know what I said, and to my defense, I actually called Alexis while I was gone to pick up breakfast, right before she went out. And I decided to follow you because…” he stopped mid-sentence and started fiddling with the brim of the cup, careful not to spill the coffee. “Look Beckett… I know I’m a nuisance. You have no idea how many times my own daughter told me to get the hell out of the house because I was being a smartass with her friends, annoying the hell out of them. That’s who I am, I’m one of those people that simply love to be the comic relief of the situation. But the other day, when you came to my release party… you saved me!”

“Saved you?”

He nodded. “Yes. I was bored. I was bored to death by all that stuff. It’s been like that for years;: I write a book, I do press stuff, signing sessions with women who haven't read a single line of literature in their whole life asking me to sign their chests. Over and over again, year after year, book after book. When we were married, Gina used to keep me on a very short leash, making me write all day and besides what I wrote when I was in college, I think the books I wrote during our marriage were the worst I’ve ever produced. I had no time to do the research I wanted! Now I have the chance to make something better, write something better, more grounded in reality.” he stated, pouring his heart in his words.

It was true; the four books he had written while he and Gina were married were pretty much crap, at least from his point of view, not the critics'. Practically no research done, mechanically written like a programmer writes strings of pre-determined code when creating web sites. The stories were written like a Lego house, pre-made blocks of plastic that together formed a book long enough to be sold.

To his eyes, they were nothing more than dull words printed on paper. He was more proud of his latest book, the first one he had wrote in complete freedom after he and Gina had broken up, although it meant he had to kill Derrick.

“Why follow me then? There are thousands of retired cops in this city, I’m sure you can afford to ask one of them to be your adviser.”

He shook his head. His hair flopped a little bit out of place, but he put it back with one quick swipe of his hand. “Retired cops would tell me how things worked during their time in the force. Some of them don’t even know about forensic evidences and I’ve met detectives that worked in the seventies and eighties that didn’t know what a DNA test is. You brought me to the morgue, even if I didn’t ask it. You’re letting me tail you, bearing my presence although I’m pissing you off like hell and you allow me to be part of the investigation. That’s what I need.”

“The Mayor ordered me to take you with me,” she argued.

“As an observer. That’s what I asked him. I wanted to come with you as an observer. You were the one that pulled me in and started asking me questions, discussing the detail of the case with me.”

He noticed the slightest flinch on her part, a minor twitch of her eye, as if she had just realized that she had been the one allowing him to be involved in the case and not just shadow her.

“Alright. You win this round. Just be aware that I have a gun and I won’t hesitate to use it.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he replied. “Are we OK?”

“Yes we are. Now, what do you think about it?” she asked, closing the notepad with a soft thud.

“About what?”

Beckett rolled her eyes. “About the case.”

Their plates arrived in that moment, interrupting him once again. They thanked the waitress and went back to their conversation. “I think Mr. Peterson could have a motive.”

The detective added some ketchup to the fries. “As in they had a tryst? Worth checking but I have to be honest, he’s the kind of man that has an airtight alibi and I have the feeling he’s not involved, but I'll have it checked out.”

“You feel he’s not involved because up to now there are no evidences pointing at him or because…”  his voice trailed off.

“The innate ability of vampires to read body language and have a deeper perception of how people act? A bit of both,” she stated.

“Right,” he tried a bite of his cheeseburger and let out a moan of deep satisfaction. “Wow, you were right. This is really good.”

“Told you. I was wondering about Chloe. I know it sounds weird but… She changed demeanor too quickly when I asked about her employers.”

“Oh, I thought it was only a figment of my imagination.”

She shook her head. “No, don’t worry. You got it right. It was kind of impossible not to notice it though. This case is strange, really, I have to say it. I keep having thoughts about it but in the end they make no sense.”

“Maybe you just need to rest for a bit. You’ve been up and about for nearly a day, you must be tired. Why don’t we concentrate on something else for a while, at least now while we eat?”

She chewed a little bit and swallowed. “That would be nice. I’m so used to eating while reviewing the case notes that this feels odd. But now that you suggest a change of subject; why did you kill Derrick?”

She asked it in such an offended tone it didn’t take it much more to realize that she was more than a fan of the genre, as she had stated days before. Detective Kate Beckett was a fan of his books. That was the same reaction his editor had when he had turned the last chapter in for reviewing, the same question, albeit in a different tone, that Gina had asked ten minutes after the email had been sent.

"Speed reader?" he asked.

Beckett nodded. "Comes with my condition:" And with being a fan. "So?"

“Boredom. I told you, I was bored. His adventures were becoming a parody of what they were in the beginning. I wasn’t inspired, it was like I was simply copying something that had already been written. To be honest, that’s not how I like to work;” he explained.

“But why killing him in such a messy way? I mean… didn’t it feel like killing your own son or something?”

“Killing Clara was worse, that's why I brought her back. Killing Derrick… it was needed. Like Ned Stark’s death in Game Of Thrones. And to be completely honest, I may still pick him up again, if inspiration strikes again in the future. He’s a CIA affiliate after all, those people can fake someone’s death.”

Beckett shook her head and ate the last piece of her burger. “Then what? You’ll have a group of eco-terrorists based in Middle East kidnap his body and throw him in a pit full of alchemical products to resurrect him so an immortal warlord can use him for his dirty deeds?

By the time she had stopped speaking, Castle had been rendered speechless. “Did you just… were you talking about Ra’s al Ghul?”

“Well, maybe…”

Shocked and wide-eyed, like a deer caught in the headlights, he blurted out the most idiotic phrase he could have said in that moment. “Marry me.”

He regretted it the moment those two words left his mouth.

But contrary to his expectations, Beckett laughed so hard she nearly bent in two. “No thank you,” she said through fits of laughter. “I’m quite good as I am now.”

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Quickly straightening herself, she pulled it and answered it. A short conversation followed. Once it was over, he saw her sigh, loudly, and her eyes turned from slightly amused to definitely irritated. “I’ve got to go. The DA taking care of one of my cases needs to review it before trial tomorrow. Let’s finish so I can take you back to the precinct.”

\---

An hour later, Castle was back at home. Only when the front door of the loft was closed behind him he felt a slight sense of weariness wash over him. If Beckett hadn’t slept in nearly a day, the same went for him. Maybe he had been awake longer, writing those two chapters that had made his editor so happy he was sure she was dancing on her desk chair back at Black Pawn headquarters.

A quick shower and a change of clothes later, there was a fresh cup of good coffee beside his laptop and he was back at work, from his point of view. He had grabbed a copy of the DVD with the security camera footage and had burned a copy, clearly intended to be useful even while Beckett was occupied.

But Ryan was right. There wasn’t much in those videos. Just a normal girl that twentyfour hours earlier was alive and now wasn’t, using an elevator. That’s all. But there was something in those videos that didn’t match, something that made his mind tick that intrigued him. He just needed to find out what it was.

Right in that moment, his mother appeared on the doorstep of his study. “Watching something interesting?”

He mumbled something unintelligible. “An elevator.”

“Must be a hell of an elevator if you’re looking at it so intensely,” she said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“It’s the last time our victim was seen alive,” he explained.

“Oh Richard, please, you have to stop stealing evidence from the precinct. That poor girl is going to be more trouble than you, if they find out what you are doing!”

“I didn’t steal it! I burned a copy of the DVD!”

Alexis head popped in the doorway. “What DVD?”

“Your father is stealing evidence again,” replied Martha. “Has he raised your allowance?”

His daughter gleefully skipped inside his study and walked beside him. “No, he hasn’t. Really Dad, you stole evidences once already, aren’t you afraid Detective Beckett is going to arrest you?”

He shook his head. “Not this time. I’m actively working on the case now. Beckett’s just busy right now. Not exactly happy about it, but busy.”

“Looking for something interesting?” asked Alexis again.

Castle shrugged his shoulders, feeling a little tightness in his neck. He needed some sleep. “I don’t know. One of the detectives found this footage and it shows only the victim going down, up and down again. Nothing else."

"Uh, Dad? Look at the time stamp; when she goes down the second time it takes her more time."

Castle watched the two videos again, this time putting them side by side for comparison. The second time Sarah went down it took her five seconds longer. The time stamps didn't coincide. "Five seconds more... how many floors higher?"

"Two, maybe three, depends on the speed," replied Martha.

Quickly, he pulled his phone and sent a text message to Beckett. Meet me at the crime scene building, I think I've found something in the security footage.

He was on his way there when Beckett replied to his text with an angry sequence of What the hell, before saying she was on her way there. Once she arrived, Castle dragged her inside the elevator and started it. Staying silent through the barrage of question she kept asking during the short ride, he looked at his stopwatch and took the time of the ride to the twelfth floor then down to the basement, and from there up to the fifteenth.

"There. Five seconds longer than going to the floor where the Petersons live. Just like in the videos."

Beckett sighed. "You stole evidence again?"

He pulled the DVD he had burned out of his jacket and handed it to her. "Borrowed. I made a copy, here it is. But here's what I found; the second time she came down, it wasn't from the Petersons' place. The elevator trip took five seconds more. She came from up here, the fifteenth floor. I bet Chloe Richardson works here."

She checked through her notes. "You're right, she works here for the Harris family. Come, let's go check it out."

What happened next was nearly absurd. First they find the family they were looking for then proceeded with the routine questioning about the presumed time of death of Sarah Manning and why she might have come up to that floor at that hour, but after Castle had disappeared in the bathroom with one of the lamest excuse Beckett had ever heard, a cellphone started ringing, blasting a cheerful pop song out of its tiny speaker. She saw Castle reappear from the bathroom holding his own phone in his hand just in time to see Mrs. Harris come back from the master bedroom.

Considering the way she was looking at her husband, that wasn’t her phone.

\---

Things get tough when people know the rules, Castle saw it pretty clearly on Beckett's frustrated look when she came out of the interrogation room after she had to let Harris go. He had a lawyer, a good one, had asked for his presence immediately and that shark had sealed his mouth shut. She had got nothing out of him except an early declaration of innocence. He had not confirmed or denied a relationship with Sarah, but his wife had found her phone beneath their bed, there were little doubts she had lost it while she had a friendly chat with him over a coffee. He said nothing though, so they had nothing, except the theory that wanted him to be both Chloe' and Sarah's lover, and that Chloe had developed a morbid obsession for Ian that burst in a violent jealous rage over Sarah.

"Can't you call Chloe in and question her again?" he asked after a long while spent staring silently at the murder board. "I mean... you saw the photos, she's obsessed with him."

"I know, but it's not that easy. We can't just walk in and start asking her if she had a relationship with Harris, you saw how she reacted the moment we asked about him this morning. Also, it's just a theory based on a sensation, we don't have anything concrete to support it."

Castle was sure Beckett had carefully avoided to tell him about the faint yet present and distinctive scent that proved that Chloe spent more time than what was acceptable in her employer’s master bedroom, a trail he was certain she had picked up when they were checking for other signs of Sarah's presence. She had probably omitted to mention it because, after all, for all she knew he wasn't able to pick it up.

He caught her stifling a yawn when she thought he wasn't looking. "Tired?" he asked.

"I've been up for more than twenty- four hours and while it's true that we need less sleep than a normal human being, after nearly thirty hours awake we start getting tired too."

"Coffee can't keep people up for too long, no matter what. Why don't we go home, catch some sleep and start over again tomorrow morning, fresh eyes and all?"

It was a good idea. They both needed some sleep, they were tired and thinking coherently had become a hard fest for both of them. Beckett nodded. No way she could disagree with him, it was written on their faces that they needed some rest to figure how to close this case. They had both risen  from their seats, picking up their things when Esposito's desk phone rang. A moment later he hung up. "Yo Beckett, it was the doorman from the Harris' building. Said Diana Harris called him, someone has come in the apartment and she heard her husband fighting with someone."

"Where is she?"

"Barricaded in the bathroom, with her daughter. The doorman told her to stay there and lock the door then he called 911. Any ideas?"

She looked at Castle and they both nodded. Chloe. "Yes. Call dispatch for reinforcements, I'm going there now."

During the car ride to the scene, she pushed the engine as much as she could in the evening traffic. They managed to arrive there in ten minutes, too long for her tastes. If Chloe's obsession had turned violent towards Sarah, nothing would stop her from trying to hurt Ian's wife and daughter whose only fault was being his family, something that kept him from being completely hers. They were obstacles on her path to reach her goal.

Completely forgoing the elevator, Beckett for once exploited her superhuman skills and ran upstairs, gun in hand and ready to shoot in case she needed it. She arrived at the Harris's apartment much faster.

The door was open, so she entered, walking carefully with her back against the wall and her gun readied. In the living room, she found an unconscious Ian Harris, a visible wound on his forehead that was rapidly bruising. She checked his pulse, strong and steady, then went on to look for. Chloe in the apartment. There were no traces of her.

"Mrs. Harris this is Detective Beckett," she spoke just outside the bathroom door. "You can come out now, you're safe."

The door opened and Diana and Becca came out, visibly upset and scared. "She's gone?"

Beckett nodded. "She's not here, we'll start looking for her as soon as we can get you to safety."

Two uniforms arrived in that moment, with Castle in tow. "Everything alright?" he asked.

"For now. Call an ambulance then escort Mrs. Harris and her daughter to the precinct, I'll launch an APB for Chloe as soon as we get back to the 12th."

Castle shook his head. "No need. She never left the building. She's in the basement, in the laundry room."

Beckett couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed by that intrusion. "How do you even know?"

He really wanted to answer with the truth, telling her he had picked up a very recent trail of her scent in the lobby, and that it went in the direction of the basement, but he bit his tongue and went for a quick half-truth. "While waiting for the elevator I saw a trail of blood on the floor going in that direction. There's some here too, right outside the door in the corridor. She's bleeding and she left those traces."

Beckett peeked out the door and saw the smudged trail of blood going from the apartment to the elevator. "You two stay here," she said to the uniformed cops. "I'll go downstairs. Castle, come with me, but if you get in the way I swear I'll shoot you."

Silently, he nodded and followed her. He was smart enough to follow her instructions in cases of emergency, she had to give him that. She just hoped he wouldn’t try anything heroic as the other day with Tisdale.

As they approached the laundry room, the smell of blood became more intense and Beckett found herself with trembling hands and that tingling sensation she always had in her lips when she was near fresh blood, be it human or not. The inhuman instinct to bite and feed on something raw that came when she was tired, stressed, and too close to a fresh source. She hated it. It was the only side of her conditions she really despised, because this part of the legends was true. Vampires did feed on blood, sometimes. Like a thirsty person is instinctively guided to seek a source of water, a person with her conditions sought a source of iron and protein as fresh as possible; be it an almost raw steak or the pulsing jugular of a human being.

“What’s your plan?” he asked.

“To get everyone out of here alive.”

Before entering  the room where Chloe had taken refuge, she stopped, one hand on the door handle and the other gripping her gun in an attempt to stop the trembling. She took a deep breath then pulled the door open.

Chloe was inside, sitting on a table with a knife in her hand. The blood came from multiple cuts she was inflicting to her thigh. When the door opened, the nanny jolted in her precarious seat and raised the knife towards the detective. “Stand back.”

Knowing perfectly well that she wasn’t a big threat to her, or to Castle if he stayed behind the door, Beckett raised her hands, showing her gun and making sure she saw her finger away from the trigger. “Chloe, stop. We know what happened. There’s no need to act like this, just give me the knife and come with me.”

“You know?”

Beckett nodded as she knelt and placed the gun on the concrete floor. “We know you love Ian. We know he betrayed you with Sarah and that you killed her here. It was an accident, wasn’t it? You didn’t mean to kill her.”

Chloe nodded. “I just wanted to talk to her. I wanted to ask her to back away from him. When she said no I was just… so angry… I grabbed the bleach and hit her with it. Next thing I know, I was pushing her inside the clothes dryer.”

“You were shocked. You didn’t know what to do, so you tried to hide. But why attack Ian tonight?”

There was a long pause of complete silence. Chloe had the blade on her thigh again, slowly slicing the skin through the thin fabric of her jeans. Beckett dared to glance at the door and saw that Castle had silently come in, but was standing in the doorway, doing absolutely nothing but observing. Still an idiot, though less annoying. As long as he didn’t get in her way, she could deal with him. She brought her attention back to Chloe, waiting for an answer.

“I’m pregnant.”

The confession came like a lighting bolt in a clear sky. And it made things a lot clearer.

“OK. Chloe, listen to me. What you’re doing… it won’t do you any good. Ian was a douchebag, this is all his fault. He broke your heart and you were upset. And that’s OK. If you come with me we can figure it out together. Put the knife down and let me help you.”

Chloe’s hand trembled, much like her own, then the girl let out a strangled breath and the knife fell to the floor. Promptly, she stood and walked towards her, kicking the knife out of the way.

She saw Castle start breathing again in the corner, then Esposito rushed inside with Ryan in tow. From then on, it was only a matter of following protocol. Chloe was arrested, read her rights, and was escorted to holding at the precinct for a quick check up and medication for her thigh. Just a normal arrest for something that could have been avoided altogether.

She hated cases like this, with all her heart.

She shook her head in barely disguised disgust as the paramedics rolled the gurney with an unconscious Ian Harris from the front door. A moment later, a plastic cup of steaming coffee appeared in front of her.

Castle.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the cup from his hand. “I really needed it.”

“I had the feeling. I saw you shaking a little bit before you got in that room. Everything alright?”

Beckett nodded. “Yes. I’m just tired. I haven’t slept in thirty hours or so, smell of blood tends to make me jittery when I’m tired.”

He nodded. “Wanna grab something to eat before going home?”

“No, thanks. I’ll be fine once I get home and get my iron supplements.”

“What about the soft surface of your bed and a warm duvet? You look like you just came out from a grave.”

That made her laugh. Usually vampire jokes made her sick to her stomach because they tended to be insulting and gross. This one was just… it just came in the right place at the right time. She did feel like she had just come out from a grave. And the idea to just go to bed and sleep until next afternoon wasn’t bad at all.

“That was a good one Castle, I have to admit it. I think I’ll just check a couple of things at the precinct then go home. You can go too, if you want. I’ll call when the next body drops.”

“Alright,” he agreed. “Maybe I’ll still be in time to see my daughter before she goes to bed. You really have weird work hours.”

“Told you. Come on, I’ll take you home.”


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

A month after the nanny case, Castle was starting to realize why so many cops suffered from issues such as depression and anything related.

Shadowing Detective Beckett was gruesome, and not only because of her weird schedule but also because of the emotional stress she had to endure every day that transferred to him, for obvious reasons. In less than a month he had seen some of the worst examples of humanity he could think of and all the ways they had tried to defy the law.

The second case they worked together, the one that involved a group of rich brats from private school and a sociopath that just wanted to prove he could commit the perfect murder, hit pretty close to home. Not only because he had gone to that same school, although he was expelled before he could complete his term there, but most of all because Alexis went to that type of school.

That case got him thinking for a while about the new generations and the fixation some of those kids had with being always online and sharing everything they did. It had been the key to solve the case, the only aspect their young killer hadn’t thought about, and it made him wonder if his own obsession for every hi-tech gizmo invented was something good or bad. His Twitter account had a growing number of followers, he liked to share funny tidbits of his life, vague pictures of what was happening around him, but these kids shared everything they had on their phones.

And if he had to judge that using his own daughter as a comparison, their cell phones were their lives.

Then there was the case of the dead politician, the dirty background of the whole story made him sick to his stomach multiple times as they worked on it. It reminded him a little of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair on a smaller scale, even though it involved an escort instead of a young intern, with the faithful wife and everything. If it hadn’t turned out to be a horrible mask that hid the hypocrisy behind politics and all that turned around it, it could have even looked like a nice thing to see, in a society that sees divorce as an easy and, everything considered, socially acceptable way out.

That was the dark side of the whole thing.

On the bright one though, he was having fun. Beckett was closed off, he wasn’t sure if it was because of her job, her condition or the event in her life that had caused her to become a cop, but from time to time she opened up and sometimes he managed to make her smile. There had been some funny moments at the precinct, like when he had ordered the state of the art espresso machine for the break room, or her nearly hysterical reaction when she had realized he was practically hiding from his publisher on the day Storm Fall was released.

Then there was the reading and signing session right after they had closed the case. But that was some material he preferred to keep for more late night activities.

What mattered the most were the ideas flowing like a river from his mind, through his fingers and straight to his computer, which made Gina happy and off his back. He had already outlined the whole novel, chose the characters, named a few and gave the two protagonists a full background - still subjects to changes, even radical if inspiration struck. Finally, Kate Beckett’s alter ego had a name: Nikki Heat. Strong like the character, easy to remember, perfect for book titles. He also had the perfect name for his own alter ego, though he was still working on the first name, which sent his editor nuts as she wanted the names to start the first steps of the promotional campaign. Every email in reply to the draft of a chapter asked for Rook’s first name. Still nothing.

He had sent in six drafts and one almost definitive chapter in record time. He was progressing well, faster than most of his previous books. He had a new, rather close deadline, but he was well ahead of it, there was nothing keeping him from writing, except for the unusual hours he spent at the precinct.

Lucky for him he had always been a night owl, ever since he was a teenager.

He was holed in his office, feet propped on the edge of his desk typing word after word as he created a very intricate action scene between a very naked Nikki and a Polish thug three times her size when a knock on the door startled him out of his self-induced trance.

“Come in,” he said, after he regained some sort of composure.

The door opened and his mother walked in. “How are you doing, kiddo?”

He shrugged his shoulders and closed the computer. “Not bad.”

“Dinner’s almost ready, Alexis is taking care of it.” She sat down on a chair on the other side of his desk. “You’re writing a lot these days,” she said, stating the obvious.

Castle nodded and set the laptop on the wooden surface before sitting up straight. “Yeah… I think I’ve found my rhythm again.”

Martha nodded, clearly pleased to hear this. “It’s good to know but Richard, I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“About what?”

“About this arrangement. Richard, I can see this is good for you, you haven’t been this focused on your writing in years but… are you sure you’re doing the right thing? You still manage to be home for every meal with Alexis, but have you thought about how disruptive this situation is for that poor girl?” she explained, voicing her doubts about her son’s partnership with the NYPD. A partnership he knew perfectly well he had forced on that nice detective who was strong enough to bear with him almost every day. Because that's what his mother was telling him.

“Detective Beckett is fine, she doesn’t have any problem with me hanging around the precinct.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He nodded. “We talked about it. Multiple times. She knows I’m a jackass sometimes and she punishes me for it when I deserve it," he carefully omitted the fact that he acted like a jackass most of the time, except when seriousness was needed. "You have no idea how driven she is, she’s good for me. I’m not joking, she’s what I needed.”

“And you? Are you good for her?”

The question came out of nowhere, he wasn’t expecting it. Was he good for her, with his nuisance, his poking and prodding, the off-time jokes and all the little things that annoyed her out of her mind but he insisted on doing and saying? Sometimes he was the plucky sidekick everyone found annoying and most of the times his theories were just castles in the air, grounded into nothing, and he knew it. He liked to play, lighten the mood just enough so the detectives could rest their minds for a moment.

Was that something good for them? He liked to think it was.

“Yes Mother. I am.”

“I really hope your Nikki Heat comes out at least half as good as Detective Beckett is, because otherwise you’d be in horrible trouble.”

“I’m trying to do her justice but I fear Nikki will never be as great as Beckett,” he revealed, his voice dropping an octave without conscious acting.

He knew Martha had picked the slightly sad tone in his voice, she knew him all too well and could read his signals. After all, she was his mother, she could read him like an open book. “What do you mean?”

“I’m writing Nikki as a normal human being. Beckett has vampire-related porphyria, but I can't write it in the novel.”

He saw the realization striking her, like a sparkle in her eyes. “Oh. And does she know about…”

“No. There’s no need for her to know. I can deal with my own condition without aggravating her own. She’s already in a very precarious place, being unable to stay out in direct sunlight for long periods of time like any other cop. I don’t want her to worry about the risk of a werewolf turning without warning.”

“Oh Richard you stopped changing without warning when you were eighteen, the last time you changed was when Meredith served you the divorce papers, please. I think she has the right to know who she’s working with!”

Castle growled and run his hands in his hair, pulling a little bit when he reached the nape of his neck. “Mother, please. We’re adults and we can deal with ourselves. We don’t need a babysitter.”

“But sometimes you need a mother. Richard, really, you need to tell her. You want to be good for her? Start with being sincere. She was with you, why don’t you repay her with a little bit of trust? I’m sure she won’t freak out.”

He was more than sure she wouldn’t freak out. Beckett wasn't the type of person that would be upset in front of a well-mannered werewolf. But his mother was right, one day or another he'd had to tell her about his own condition.

"Think about it Richard. It's up to you, I can't force you like when you were a child. I can only suggest to you what I think is right."

"Thank you Mother, I appreciate it. But there's no need for her to know. I've kept it for a restricted circle of people all my life. No need to include her in it."

Nodding, Martha stood and walked out of the room. "We'll call you when dinner is ready."

When she closed the door behind her back, the office plunged in thick silence, leaving Castle alone with his thoughts. His mother was right, if they worked together he needed to be sincere with Beckett, she was always worrying about his safety when there was no need to, he could handle himself pretty well. But what if he told her and she freaked out? After all he could potentially cause an enormous amount of damage to people and objects if he lost it, she had the right to know he was a walking ticking time bomb. People like him with the apparent lycanthropy gene, that piece of genetic code that allowed them to transform into a big, burly, hairy human-canine hybrids, were able to shred steel as if it was paper, with sharp talons and jaws strong enough they could rip the head off another human with a couple of bites.

He didn't know why people were more scared of vampires than werewolves, because he was damn scared of what he could do. Not that he had ever hurt anyone when he had changed, but the mere possibility made his skin crawl.

He despised his condition with all his heart and tried to ignore it as much as he could, and telling Beckett about it would mean needing to answer a lot of questions he preferred to keep private. He still dreaded the memory of Meredith freaking out when he blurted it out right after she had revealed she was pregnant with Alexis. The barrage of accusations and subsequent questions had nearly made him inadvertently change because of the sudden stress. Only years of self-conditioning had avoided a more chaotic turn of the events.

Luckily, his daughter hadn’t inherited the whole pool of genes of lycanthropy. She was one of the latent ones, she displayed some of the characteristics, like the perfect health and heightened senses, but she was unable to turn. One less thing to worry about. He didn’t want her to go through what he endured when he was a teenager and young adult.

But most of all, he didn’t want to see Beckett’s reaction, whatever it would be. Not if he could avoid it.

\---

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.

So much for trying to stay up to date and not relegating the filling of all the forms to the end of the case.

Beckett was metaphorically submerged with paperwork. Some was still related to the dead nanny case, she didn’t have the time after the case had been closed, a little pile of not-so-important forms, and the bigger, more important pile related to case they had just closed.

That night she was bound to her desk, completely out of her natural environment, pen in hand and coffee cup kept full on the table. And the continuous bored sighs she couldn’t keep in check.

She hated paperwork.

At least she wasn’t alone in her boredom; Esposito had stayed late too, filling his own pile of forms that rested on his desk. Misery loves company. Ryan instead, as the good school boy he was, always completed his paperwork at the end of each day, making it easier and faster for him to deal with the insane amount of red tape cops had to deal with when they closed their cases.

Beckett wasn’t as diligent as him, nor was Esposito, so they were paying the price of their laziness.

Being head of the team, Beckett had to deal with the majority of the bureaucracy. The ton of shit 1PP dumped each year on them was amazing… she was waiting for the day they’d decide to turn to a digital method, because it would cut the rate of deforestation for production of paper… a lot.

Around midnight Esposito left. She had caught him dozing off on his desk a couple of times and ordered him to go away and get some rest. He had done much of the leg work for the past case, dumpster diving included, without catching much sleep in the meantime, and technically he wasn’t on duty that night, only on call, so he could go home and rest. Hoping no body would drop.

Three AM and she was finally finished. And bored out of her mind. She was almost hoping someone would be murdered so she could get out and do something. When she had a crime to solve everything made sense, even the most impossible set of evidence after a while could be put together into something that made sense. Maybe not much, most of all regarding motives, but in the end it was a rare event for her to not solve a case. Their team had a rate of solved case so high it kept the precinct at the top of the efficiency list of homicides for the entire city.

Bored out of her mind and not exactly happy with the perspective of going home only to be called again if a body dropped, Beckett decided to stay a couple of hours longer than she initially intended, so she walked to the break room in long strides, the soft click of her heels on the wooden floor echoed in the nearly empty bullpen like the ticking of a clock. The sound reminded her of the old clock at her grandparents’ house, a noise so loud to her sensitive ears it nearly drove her mad when she was learning to control her senses.

Those were tough times.

A uniform walking into the break room brought her back to the present. She eyed the new, expensive coffee maker that made her go nuts each time she tried to operate it, but with Castle out of sight she was free to try again without him interfering. It took her a couple of attempts but in the end she made it work, just in time to return at her desk, when the phone rang.

"Beckett."

"Hi Kate, it's Lanie."

"What are you doing up at this hour?"

She heard a displeased grunt on the line. "Had to come in when someone on the night shift got food poisoning and had to go home. I've just finished his autopsy and I'm done with the cleaning too. You're on call right? Want to come down? I need to talk to you."

"Everything alright?" she asked.

"Just bored and in need for some girl talk. That's all."

Beckett grabbed her jacket and quickly drove down to the morgue. New York had some serious issues with traffic during the day but at night there were little problems. Fourteen minutes later she was sitting on a pristine clean autopsy table with Lanie setting up her instruments ready for the next body.

"So?"

"What's going on between you and Writer Boy?" asked the ME, always straight to the point.

"Uh, nothing?" she replied, not exactly happy with the question. "What should be going on between us?"

"I don't know, maybe some sex? Have you even seen the way he looks at you? That boy is smitten!"

Kate groaned. "Not you too, please! I have enough of Espo and Ryan throwing innuendos every time I go out with him tailing me, I don't need your voice added to the choir."

"How is he doing though? Still the class clown of the first day?"

"Not so often. I mean, he's still a bit of a jerk but he’s learned to refrain from doing it when we're with witnesses and suspects... He's still kind of annoying from time to time."

Lanie looked up from the tray she was preparing. "And the rest of the time?"

Beckett thought for a moment before answering. "The rest of the time he's a nice guy. He's got a daughter, you know, and he calls or texts her all the time while he's with me, he brings me coffee nearly every time I call him... Except when he's the class clown he's nice to hang out with." She looked down at the hem of her shirt as she twisted it between her fingers. "He's nice enough and he's very perceptive and careful of what I do."

"Of what you do? You told him about your... "

"Not about my mother, but my condition. When we arrested Tisdale it was broad daylight and I didn't have my sunglasses so... he realized it by himself when sunlight blinded me bad enough I cursed," she explained, recalling those events that had taken place five weeks before but felt like a lifetime ago. "He didn't even flinch, he just shielded me with his jacket and waited until I was fine."

"Girl, listen to me. I know you have eternity and some spare time ahead of you but, seriously that guy's a keeper. He's your favorite author, he's smart and nice and didn't freak out when he realized you're a vampire... What do you want more?"

"My mother's murderer behind bars and the key to his cell thrown in the Hudson River," Beckett spat those words out as if they were venomous.

Beckett wasn't surprised when Lanie wasn't taken aback by those cruel words, she knew all too well about her obsession about her mother's death her her struggle to keep herself from diving into that bottomless pit again. "Ever thought about letting go a little bit? Have you even been out with someone different from your father and me since Will left for Boston?" Kate knew very well that Lanie was well aware of the answer. No, she hadn't. "Kate, I care about you like a sister, and it kills me to see you like this. You’re a control freak, we get it, but you really need to let it go sometimes. Just have fun for once, it won’t kill you!”

“Not with Castle though!” replied Kate.

“Why the hell not? Really, you two look good together. How many man have you met that didn’t run away screaming bloody murder when you told them you are a vampire?”

She could count them on one hand. Lanie, Montgomery, Ryan (who had a werewolf cousin), and Castle. Esposito had backed away a couple of steps as knee-jerk reflex before calming down. “Maybe you’re right but… I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

“What? Two consensual adults having fun isn’t good?”

“He’s not my type, that’s all. I’m not into playboys with the attention span of a five year old child.”

Lanie sighed and covered the now ready tray with a surgical towel. “That’s why he’s exactly the type of man you need.”

“You know… Now that you’re making me think about it… he gets me to talk,” stated Kate, kind of out of the blue.

That caught Lanie’s attention. “He gets you to talk? What do you mean?”

Beckett shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know… he’s a good listener. Sometimes he interrupts too often but he’s good at listening. And notices things. He’s really perceiving, everything considered. He thinks outside the box, like that idea he had with the rug the other day, about sending pictures of it to his… whatever she was. It didn’t lead us to anything but at least it was a good idea I didn’t have. It’s like he hides behind a mask, like the class clown is just an act. I think he would be a good cop, if only he could be more serious about it.”

Lanie chuckled. “And you still hold back? Kate, seriously. You’re a hypocrite. A lonely hypocrite that dressed up to upset him at his reading, the other day. All dressed to the nines and you still haven’t jumped his bones. What happened to the girl that spent nearly every Friday night at the CBGB?”

“Shut down activity when Patti Smith played the last time before CBGB closed. Let’s make a deal; I might consider him as something more than an idiot that shadows me as an excuse to get in my pants, the day he’ll stop calling prostitutes in order to get us to interrogate them, OK?”

“Deal,” replied Lanie. “For now. Come on, there’s a bar around the corner that’s open all night. Let’s wait for a body in front of a cupcake.”


	7. Chapter 6

The case hit her close to home. Too close.

It was the kind of case she dreaded, because it reminded her too much of her mother.

The sun hadn't risen yet when her phone beeped on the nightstand. It was one of those rare on call nights she decided to sleep at home, instead of relying on crashing on the break room couch waiting for a body to drop. She was hoping to get at the precinct for an extraordinary day shift well rested, and of course all her hopes burned like her skin in the sun.

It was barely 5 AM, she didn't need to be in until 9. She could have slept at least one more hour. She answered the call with her voice still muffled by sleep, took a note for the address and then called Castle. He picked up almost immediately. "Body?" he groaned, not entirely happy to be roused from his deep sleep at that hour.

"Yep, just got called in. I'll text you the address. Take your time, the body was just found, CSU and Lanie will probably need a couple of hours to clear the way for us."

She heard a loud grunt and the noise of ruffled sheets as he moved around in his bed. The thought of Castle rolling out of bed made her feel awkwardly turned on for a second.

"In two hours the sun will be up, are you going to be OK?"

"Let's hope the body is somewhere indoors. Otherwise I'll have to bite the bullet and stand the pain. It's not like I burn to death as soon as I set foot outside, I have a decent window of time before my skin gets damaged."

"Got it. I'll see you there."

Castle was already at the scene when she arrived, patiently waiting behind the yellow tape while chatting with LT. Looking around, she took in the area; an open construction area with lots of space to drop a body. There were a lot of workers not exactly knowing what to do, some were being questioned as witnesses. She noticed Esposito waiting for her too, and as soon as he spotted her he walked at her side. "He was here before me," he said, pointing at Castle. "Come, the body's inside."

They walked beneath the tape and Castle followed them. "You're gonna love this one."

Beckett shook her head. "I doubt it."

CSU in their Tyvek suits were still fervently working on the scene but they had cleared a path they could access the body. They found Lanie precariously perched on a portable elevator borrowed from the workers as she took notes while she examined their victim. Beckett couldn't believe her eyes. "Is she..."

"Frozen solid? Yes she is."

"Told you you'd like it." She heard Castle say behind her. "Come on, I know you do, don't try to play it cool."

Esposito snorted loudly, trying to restrain a burst of laughter. As soon as he saw the murderous look on her face he stopped, but Castle didn't care much and kept smiling like a fool. "Stop it," she ordered. "A woman died. Try to be respectful."

He stopped right away. "Any idea on how she ended up there in that state? It wasn't that cold tonight."

"I can only tell you it wasn't exposure. I'll tell you more when I get to open her."

The ease with which Lanie talked about cutting up bodies made her kind of sick. She took the opportunity to walk a few steps away from the small group and look around. Not that she expected to find much, even with her superhuman abilities, the body had been clearly dropped from another location, there wasn't much to be found. No blood, no traces, no peculiar smells foreign to a construction site to pick up… Nothing. She ran her hands on the back on her neck, trying to get some of the frustration out of her body, before going back to Esposito and Castle. "Where's Ryan?" she asked.

"Canvassing," replied Esposito. "We split the workers and he found a couple that came here earlier. He's taking their testimony right now. What do you want to do?"

"Let's finish canvassing, I'll question the boss here then we'll go through missing people."

Out of all the boring things Castle could think about, looking through missing people files was certainly in his personal top ten. They were sitting at the table in the conference room, each one of them with a pile of files and a reference photo of the victim. "I so wish I was in CSI right now."

"Yeah the facial recognition thing on TV looks fine, right?" replied Ryan. "I don't know CSU, but cops on TV have the best gadgets."

"And you have piles of files," added Castle.

"Well, we have the first immortal to graduate at the NYPD Academy," said Esposito, nodding at Kate.

Castle could bet he had noticed the hint of a blush on her pale skin. "The first immortal? Like… the first vampire to graduate?"

She nodded, stiffly. "Yeah well… and for all I know, the only one."

He was impressed. He thought there were more of their kind in the police forces, with their innate abilities and everything. "Wow, that's awesome! You must be really proud!"

"Castle, I have a medical condition, I'm not Wonder Woman. I don't have superpowers. I'm not proud of anything except for all work I've done since."

Her phone rang interrupting them. It was Lanie. She had identified the victim.

The talk with the ME started a chain of events that led them throughout New York trying to rebuild the last moments of Melanie Cavanagh's life. According to her file, she had disappeared five years before, last time she had been seen going out of her house late at night and then nothing else. No clues nowhere she could have gone, a lazy ass cop that had underestimated the case and had handled it like it was just another woman unhappy with her family that had run away.

After all, her past kind of pictured her like a not so reliable person, no wonder people had thought she had just decided to walk out of her life As hours passed, Castle saw the frustration growing more and more in her, as she got more fidgety and nervous with every lame excuse she heard about how Melanie's disappearance had been dealt with five years before.

The hypothesis he had made the first day he worked with her; that she had become a cop after someone close to her had been hurt, or worse, became more and more a certainty, seeing how she behaved. She was being more reckless with sun exposure, staying outside sheltered spaces for longer periods of time to interrogate people, long enough that he could see the skin on her neck develop a pinkish tone around the collar of her shirt, like a rash. When they got back to the car after they had questioned Samuel Cavanagh's best friend, which took quite a long time, she had been out in the sun for so long there were small blisters on the back of her hand. And maybe it was just a figment of his imagination but he could swear she had trouble breathing.

But signs of nervousness didn't stop once they reached UV-free spaces. He could see her balling her fists when she thought he wasn't looking, gritting her teeth when people revealed how lazy or simply cowardly they had been in the past regarding the case, clenching her jaw and chewing on her lower lip. A couple of times he caught the distinct scent of blood drawn from a small puncture she had created with her sharp teeth, one of the few traits of vampires that legends had got right. The warm, coppery scent wafted over him like the waves of the ocean on the beach, causing him to flare his nostrils, its heady texture making him swoon.

He had to take back what he had said most of his life about blood. He had tried to keep away from it for majority of his life, mainly because it was one of his triggers for unwanted changes in his… in the other form, but he couldn't help but find hers inebriating. Being unable to get high by normal means like alcohol and conventional drugs, it was a completely new feeling for him and he wasn't exactly sure how he should deal with it. For the moment, he decided it was better to ignore it, for the time being.

At the end of the second day, they had absolutely nothing to work on and Beckett sent him home, her intention to let him have some time with his family while she tried to go through all the statements they had gathered during the day. Ryan and Esposito had found the guy that dumped the body, while she and Castle had found some old acquaintances of Cavanagh that confirmed that he had some shady business in mind, but there was nothing more than that to work on. It was pretty clear he had killed her, and they could make that assumption only from what they had gathered, but proving it, although they didn't exactly need it, revealed to be far from easy.

They had nothing but anecdotes and their personal feelings coming from Melanie's father. Little to no physical evidence, at least until they heard from the forensic lab about the freezer where she had been kept, not even a money trace for the storage unit where it had been kept for all these years. Nothing.

The trail was frozen.

Beckett shut her eyes and gave herself a mental scold for the bad joke and ran her fingers through her hair. Frustration piled up each time she looked at the murder board in front of her. Every time her eyes passed on Melanie's DMV picture, she couldn't help but think about her daughters and how it could be to grow up without both parents. She wondered if knowing that their father had killed their mom and hid her body in a freezer for five years would make them feel better or throw them into the same bottomless pit she had fell when her own mother had died.

That bare thought made her sick to her stomach.

For the umpteenth time, she sighed and stood from her chair, pacing around the small cluster of desks to release some of the tension building up in her muscles. A trip to the precinct gym upstairs and a long run on the treadmill wouldn't have hurt, but her mind was so busy with the case she wouldn't enjoy it. She stretched her back and eyed Ryan, sitting in front of her, occupied with a small stack of sheets he had just printed. "Got anything?"

Ryan raised the pen in his hand. "The list of payments for the storage room where you found the freezer. The last one came in two months after Cavanagh was killed."

"Does that mean he's not the…"

He shook his head. "No. See, I've talked to one of the employers that apparently has photographic memory or something, and he said it wasn't Cavanagh that made the payments."

Right, more senseless stuff added to the pile. "Damn. He involved someone else in this. That son of a bitch!" she mumbled. "God, this makes zero sense."

Ryan sighed and walked beside her. "Beckett, you've been running around for two days now with little to no sleep in the middle. We're all going home, why don't you go too?"

"You're right. I need some sleep."

"You said it yourself yesterday; you have a medical condition, not superpowers. And I'm pretty sure Wonder Woman has a bed where she sleeps."

Beckett chuckled. "More than one, if you consider Batman's and Superman's."

Once she got in her car, she sat there for a long moment, pondering on what to do. Ryan was right, she had crashed on her couch for a couple of hours early that morning but it had done nothing to get her some rest. And the more she remained awake, the more she got cranky and couldn't think straight. But she also knew that she wouldn't get much rest if she didn't get closure.

Almost unconsciously, she found herself driving in the mild evening traffic towards Castle's loft. She wasn't sure if he was home, but nevertheless, she walked in, asked the doorman if she could go up and knocked on the door, once the polite old man welcomed her in the building.

When a six foot tall Christmas tree opened the door and pointed a plastic laser-tag gun at her, she couldn't help but be a little scared. "Castle?"

The gun was dropped. "Beckett?"

Martha, with a facial mask on, and Alexis with the same laser-tag gear as her father, appeared in the doorway behind him, as baffled as him. "Richard, you invited Detective Beckett and forgot about it?"

Quickly, she jumped to his rescue, as he was left speechless and unable to reply to his mother's question. "No, I just dropped by and…"

"Please Detective, come inside. Dinner's almost ready, you can…" and she ushered her inside with her son and granddaughter in tow. Beckett couldn't help but look around at his house, the high ceilings and the crazy expensive, but classy furnishing that she could see in the foyer and the living room. He was rich, for real. And had some good tastes.

"Oh no please Mrs. Rogers I don't want to intrude, I just need to talk to Castle for a moment then I'll leave."

"Is something wrong at the precinct?" he asked, taking his protective glasses off.

She shook her head. "No, everything is alright. I just… needed to talk to you," she answered, then promptly added, "About the case."

He nodded. "Come with me, let's talk somewhere more private." She let him gently guided her into his study and once again she couldn't restrain herself from looking around and appreciate her surroundings. Yes, he definitely had good tastes.

"Wow… I feel like Alfred walking inside the Batcave for the first time."

"We'll have to better analyze your knowledge about Batman in the future, Detective."

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Don't start the Ra's Detective thing with me, Castle. Yes, I like Batman. I also like Spiderman and other comic books. Why are you so interested?"

"Well, I love comic books too but it's more interesting to think about the characters you mentioned. Both Spiderman and Batman became superheroes after the loss of a loved one and that confirms my theory. Your father?"

Damn him and his intuition. She shook her head then tried to change subject. "So, this is where you write your books? It looks like our murder board," she asked, looking at the touch screen TV set he had beside his desk. She touched the screen and opened a small window with some info on Nikki. She hated the name but seeing the material evidence he was actually working on made her feel strangely comfortable with it.

Thankfully he didn't push it further. She wasn't in the mood. "Yes, only mine's fake. But you didn't come here to talk about my books. What's on your mind?"

She leaned on the edge of his desk."I can't find it. I know Sam killed Melanie, that's obvious, but I can't understand how he did pull it off. It's... Unnerving!"

"Well, you know he killed her. That's something. You have a culprit," he was replied, unlocking the laser tag gear from his chest and taking it off.

"It's not enough. Her daughters deserve to know more than that a construction worker found their mom frozen solid like a block of ice, left there to be covered with concrete."

"Do you think they care about it?"

Beckett nodded. "Maybe not now, but when they'll grow up they'll start asking questions and no one will be able to answer them."

"Unless you search for them now. I understand." He sat on the couch and looked up at her. His piercing blue eyes felt like a needle in her own, as if he was trying to read her mind. Much to her surprise, it didn't make her feel uncomfortable. "Right now we know what happened but not how. Specifically, we don't know how Melanie ended up in that freezer. Visiting the scene of the crime could help you."

"Not a bad idea but do you think Roger will let us in at this hour?" Legitimate question, given how late it already was.

"You have a badge," he joked. It tore a brief smile from her. "But it would be kind of inappropriate I think. You could call him and ask if we could go there tomorrow. In the meantime you could stay for dinner and go home to get some rest. I noticed you tend to forget you have a bed at home waiting for you when have a case going on, and you look tired."

"You haven't seen anything yet. I could still go on a couple of days without sleep, but I admit I'd be useless and unable to concentrate. It's just that these kinds of cases frustrate me and I can't sleep. Even if I try. If I had been a normal human being I would have been dead by now. Or at least under strict medical surveillance. That's who I am."

"And that makes you a great cop, because you care about your job. But you need to stop. Stay for dinner, then go home. We'll look into this tomorrow." He stood and headed out. "Come, my mom doesn't bite."

Martha didn't bite, that was for sure, but she could put up a show even while having dinner, and what a great show it was, it left her with aching jaws and a ridiculous smile on her face that lasted way longer than usual. When Beckett arrived home, sated and entertained, she found herself more relaxed than she had been in a while, so much that she actually managed to go to bed at a decent hour and wake up next morning rested and concentrated. And early enough to dare the sun and go out running for a while. That was enough to vent the rest of the frustration. When she arrived at the precinct, Ryan smiled at her like a big brother, so evident was the change in her. Always protective, just like Esposito, but in a different, kinder way.

It did her good, because when she and Castle went to the Cavanagh's old apartment and played a couple of scenarios of that night, based on the evidence, they found some logical explanations on what had happened more than five years ago. And with Roger's help and hindsight they also had found a possible way Cavanagh had taken his wife's dead body out.

But most important, they had fun. Beckett would never admit it, not to him at least, but she enjoyed playing with Castle as they helped each other build a theory, that in the end resulted in being more than that. It was something they could actually support with the evidence they had, and the additional material they acquired later during the day. By sundown they managed to support their conjectures with solid proof and multiple telling the same story.

The bubble burst when the evidence led them to believe and prove that Melanie's father, Ben Davidson, had followed their same steps about a year before, just before his former son-in-law was murdered in a presumed mugging that had degenerated into murder.

When they brought him in, later that night, to question him about his personal investigation, he had practically admitted he had indeed committed the murder of his son in law in revenge, just did not confess it with so many words. He asked for a lawyer and was escorted downstairs in detention while they waited for the attorney to show up. He'd probably come in the morning, as it was already late and all the offices were closed.

Like their case. Only this time there wasn't the surge of relief and pride they usually got from closing such a convoluted case with little to no physical evidence to base their investigation on. There was only the bitter aftertaste led by the knowledge that everything could have been avoided if Sam Cavanagh hadn't been an asshole that had probably been waiting for the rift chance to get rid of his wife without paying an excessive sum of money for the lawyers and alimony for Melanie. Now those little girls had lost both parents and a grandparent they loved, in a spiral of violence that could have been stopped with their mother, if only the cops at the time had done their job as they should have.

Not really tired and slightly nauseated, Beckett sat at her desk and filled a couple of forms and sent them down to be processed with Davidson's request for an attorney. The thought of everything that had happened in those three days made her sick, she had destroyed those girls' childhood definitely, more than their father had. All because she egotistically needed some closure. Her shrink from some years ago would tell her it was nothing more than sublimation of her need for closure for her mother's murder.

She was deeply immersed in her thoughts when Castle arrived and sat in his chair beside her desk. He placed a cup of coffee in front of her, nearly spilling the thick milk foam that threatened to fall over the brim. "Thought you'd need it, you stayed a long time in there."

"Thank you, Castle, I appreciate it." She took a tentative sip, careful not to get burnt.

"I have to say I wasn't expecting this outcome the other day, when you called me."

"Welcome to my world. We're lucky these kind of cases are rare, it's a Jack shot Jill over Bill thing," she replied. Well, not always, lately it seemed like all the freaky cases were diverted to her team for some obscure reason. Or simply because they solved more odd cases than any other team.

"I was kind of hoping for a serial killer, Dexter style."

Beckett chuckled. "I've been working here long enough to know that serial killers like Dexter don't exist in real life, sorry."

Castle made a highly exaggerated disappointed face. "Let me hope at least!"

They feel into a comfortable silence for a moment, before Kate decided it was time to be honest with him. He had come to the right conclusion by himself, he had just got the wrong parent. "It was my mother not my father," she started, her voice dropped an octave. "I was home for Christmas break and we had planned one last night out before I traveled back to Stanford, I was waiting for her at the restaurant with my dad. She never came. Two hours later we got home and found Detective Raglan waiting for us. She had been stabbed in an alley."

If only such a sound existed, she was sure she'd hear Castle's heart sink in his chest. She saw him swallow a lump that had clearly formed in his throat. "Mugging?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "No. She still had her purse, her credit card and all her jewellery. Police at the time thought it was an act of random violence, probably related to rival gangs. Nothing more."

"And this?" asked Castle, pointing at her watch.

"My father took it bad, now he's sober but it took him five years. So this is for the life I saved." She took the thin golden chain hanging at her neck and showed him her mother's ring she kept as a keepsake. "And this is for the life I lost. I guess now Nikki Heat has a back-story," she said with badly hidden gloom tainting her voice.

He chuckled. "I don't know, she was going to be prostitute by day and cop by night, but I think I can pull a better story from this."

It made her laugh, not for long, but he managed to pull her out of her gloomy state for a moment. "Yeah well, don't ruin your character on my account." She stood and grabbed her jacket from the back of her desk chair. "You should go home to your family, I'm sure they miss you."

"You're right, I think I'll go now. Until tomorrow, Detective."

"Can't you just say 'night or something?"

He seemed pensive for a moment. "Nah, too plain. As a writer I prefer until tomorrow. It sounds more... Hopeful."

She sighed. "Well I'm just a cop, so 'night.'"

With that, she headed towards the elevator. Paperwork could wait until tomorrow.

Castle made the connection almost immediately, when he thought back at her tale. Kate Beckett was Johanna Beckett's daughter, one of the lawyers that fought the law in favor of immortals during the late Eighties and early Nineties, one of the loudest human voices that supported immortal rights and equality, along with all the other minorities that in those years were repressed and discriminated. Her death had made headlines at the time, but her fame had quickly faded once the Federal government had approved the laws that punished discrimination of immortals. She had kept working cases that involved immortals in her career, but more in the sidelines and concentrating on other, equally important causes.

He remembered being saddened by her death because although he was one of those immortals that preferred remaining in the shadows he had appreciated the way she fought for equality of his kind, and for vampires, often accused of being "more equal werewolves" because of their photosensitivity that required special precautions. Some werewolf activists had become rather violent against vampires because of what they considered superficial requests like the screened windows in public buildings.

He remembered Johanna Beckett as a voice of moderation in a sea of idiots challenging one another to see who yelled louder. She had tried and succeeded to put some reason inside people's mind, when everyone screamed and wanted immortals segregated and kept under strict control because they deemed them dangerous. She had provided scientific facts when superstition had the best and people became scared.

Those years, most of all in the Eighties, had been hard, because at the same time there were two wars going on among public opinion: the one regarding immortals and the other one regarding AIDS. Around 1986, when he was a teenager struggling with his condition, an idiot had linked them. That's when Johanna Beckett rose from a small law firm in New York and became one of the first non-human spoke person for the immortal fight for the right to exist.

After a belated dinner and a couple of hours of quality time with his daughter, once she went to bed he closed himself in his office with a glass of Scotch and started a lengthy research on the case, without delving too much in the details. Not yet at least. The whole thing didn't feel right to him.

A wealthy woman, a well-known lawyer that for years fought what some considered a controversial legal battle is killed in an alley and the police don't look further than gang violence?

There was something wrong. Like really, really wrong. It smelled fishy even from the articles he had found on newspapers online archives.

He grabbed his phone and looked for the number of an old friend that had helped him with his Storm books.

Damn his mind and the inability to forget a mystery once he saw one. This one was going to get him into some big troubles.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Right when Castle was enjoying a well deserved night of sleep after a long and exhausting writing spree, one of his worst nightmares materialized at his door. His ex-wife Meredith was back in town. She had knocked at his door in the middle of the night with her bags and one of those skimpy little dresses that looked so good on her and with poor regards for waking him up she invited herself into his house as usual. And into his bed.

His always cheerful ex-wife was like a tornado that brought havoc in its wake, messing him up each time she visited - rarely, thank God - and leaving him confused and with a lingering sense of uneasiness that wouldn't leave him for days. At least she didn't have the same effect on their daughter, as Alexis was more capable than him to resist her mother's charm. When Meredith had left, Alexis was very hurt but through the years she had developed a shell that protected her from her mom.

With time, they had both learned to deal with her sudden dropping by at odd hours for a short stay - and more often than not, random, no-strings-attached sex - and her antics, Alexis dealing better than himself.

Maybe because he wasn't exactly over the fact that Meredith had an affair with her director and left him with a three year old kid, only to serve him the divorce papers from the other side of the States. Or maybe he was still angry about that time she had snatched Alexis from school and took her to lunch in Paris without him, her main caregiver and lawful custodian, consenting to it. She had asked forgiveness and after that she had behaved pretty well so he no reason to keep holding a grudge for them. She had returned Alexis home jet lagged, yet safe and sound after all.

He just couldn't let go that she left a blazing trail of mess ups every time she was in town, not even his mother was spared by Meredith's joyful and yet disastrous antics. That night was no exception.

She had carefully picked the moment right after a round of very acrobatic, mind-numbing, extremely satisfying sex to tell him she intended to move back to New York and start doing theater.

He instantly dreaded both things. Having Meredith back in New York would mean her impromptu visits would multiply. Not good for any of them. And if her plan to do theater fell through, his mother would kill him, before she'd strangle her with her bare hands. The odds were against him in both cases.

What a great way to start the week.

Not even the nearly completed Heat Wave manuscript that lay on his desk and an editor head over heels in love with his new novel could steer his mind away from how fucked up everything could have been if her plan worked and she managed to find a place to live and a job in New York. Maybe not even a body would distract him at that point, though he hoped that one would drop only to have an excuse to stay away from the loft.

When half an hour later he retreated to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for Alexis his phone buzzed on the counter and Detective Beckett's ID lit on the screen, he did a little happy dance. He quickly finished his task, kissed his daughter goodbye and rushed out of the loft and the suddenly toxic presence of his ex-wife, who had decided to sleep in.

But the thought of her coming back on the East Coast still nagged at him in the back of his head, an obtrusive idea that kept popping up like a porn site ad back from the Nineties. At the crime scene, he wasn't able to fully concentrate on the first stages of the investigation going on around him. He had come to love the first few moments on the scene, when wild theories were still accepted because even CSU and the coroner didn't know squat about what the hell had happened.

And considering they were standing beneath a bridge, where the body of a big, tall black man lay down on a bright red piece of cloth. The scene was clearly staged and the only thing that kept him decently concentrated was the awful smell coming from a small bowl half filled with blood. He had to keep it cool and not retch the little breakfast he had. He dared to shoot a furtive glance at Beckett and she was clearly in the same situation. He could see the rigidity of her posture and the way she twisted the end of her sleeve between her fingers as a mean to release some of the tension.

That's when she caught him staring blankly into nothing. "Castle? You there?"

"I had sex with my ex-wife," he blurted out, clearly not aware of the idiocy of what he had just said, given the situation.

The three detectives and a CSU agent stared at him. Esposito looked amused, Ryan just shook his head and went back to his notes and Beckett was just annoyed. "Meredith, Alexis' mother. She's back in town and…"

"Castle, please. There's no need to embarrass yourself more than that." Beckett stopped him in the right moment.

"Yeah well… she's kind of a deep fried Twinkie anyway."

Ryan averted his eyes from the body, curious. "Deep fried Twinkie?"

"You know that kind of treat you eat once, maybe twice a year because it's bad for you? Try eating it every day and can say goodbye to your liver in six months."

Beckett chuckled. "Castle, focus. There's a dead man here, try to show a little respect, please."

He looked down at the corpse. "I don't think he can hear me."

"Then show a little of self respect, OK?"

He nodded. "Check inside his mouth, there should be a small piece of cloth folded over a coin or medal."

Turned out, the scene was an elaborate staging of a voodoo ritual. The idea he had at the crime scene sparked from the extensive research he had done for one of his Storm books years before. The detectives were quite intrigued by his knowledge of the African religion. Out of the three of them, only Ryan had a little bit of knowledge about voodoo, coming from a case he had worked on while he was in Narcotics and a not so hidden passion for documentaries and essays on anthropology and social studies. Both Esposito and Beckett were pretty in the dark and knew little of it, except the bogus stereotypes Hollywood perpetuated through the years.

It took Castle quite a bit of effort to convince at least Beckett to follow him to his place for lunch as he arranged for an old friend of his to come over with food and the knowledge on voodoo they needed to solve this case. It took him some effort to keep her entertained while they waited for said friend to arrive with their lunch, some dramatic reading of a book she had clearly memorized a day after it had come out and some poking and prodding. In the end he managed to keep her from going back to the precinct before Michelle arrived carrying six bags full of delicious treats from her Nigerian restaurant and all her knowledge on the subject of voodooo.

Michelle, an NYU graduate turned restaurant owner and voodoo practitioner shared all she knew with them, shedding some light on their case. The person they were looking for practiced voodoo, but it wasn't the reason their victim had been killed. The culprit was looking for something and the ritual had been performed after the victim had died as an invocation to a voodoo saint, one that protected those who looked for something they had lost.

Always the skeptic, Beckett had a hard time to process all the information, but she could understand the case a little more now, Michelle gave them some clarity about why such an elaborated ritual was performed and cleared all the suspects they had about it being a ritualistic murder, an option she had dreaded the moment she had seen the crime scene that morning. And she enjoyed the food immensely, although the thought of eating cows foot stew upset her at first.

Once they arrived at the precinct, they immediately got back to work with renewed fervor in the case. She and Castle shared what they had learned with Ryan and Esposito and they had just finished reporting their own investigation that had led them to find the victim's name and where he lived, when another body dropped and they had to rush to the crime scene. They found the same staging as in the first scene, same bowl of blood, same red cloth beneath the body and same coin wrapped in white tissue. Everything matched, except the victim was a fortyish Asian-American woman. She had been killed the same way, only in her home and not beneath a bridge.

As they proceeded with their investigation, new evidence popped up, some made sense and others didn't, but they got to interrogate a young immigrant, a friend of their first victim, that led them to believe the victim's employer, a legal Nigerian immigrant called Charles Oni that owned a shop on Canal Street, had something to do with the two murders they were investigating. Both victims had links to that shop.

How they found the connection out was hilarious. They had gone back to the precinct to update the murder board and decide what to do when a loud, shrill voice came out of the elevator. Turning towards the source of such noise, Beckett encountered Castle's eyes only to find them wide open in terror. Right above his shoulder she saw a tall, high-heeled redhead with more bags she could count hanging from her arms was walking down the hallway straight to them. Behind her, a clearly exhausted Alexis dragged her feet on the wooden floor, trying to keep up with her.

"Ex-wife?" asked the detective before they could walk closer. Castle nodded, but said nothing.

"Richard, dear, there you are. Alexis and I wanted to come and say hi, and I admit I was really curious to meet you, Detective Beckett." She extended her hand and Beckett could do nothing else but take it. Her handshake was strong but polite, not the overzealous type she had learned to associate with extremely extroverted people, like she clearly was. "I'm Meredith, Alexis' mother. It's a pleasure to meet you, my daughter told me so much about you that I just had to drop by."

Beckett dared to steal a look at the teenager now sprawled in her father's side, completely and utterly depleted of all energy. The girl mouthed I'm sorry, but she shook her head. It wasn't her fault.

"Nice to meet you. I only wish we had more time but we're in the middle of an investigation and we have little time for socialization."

Meredith nodded. "I see. Well, Alexis and I will leave you to your work then. See you tonight, Kitten."

Esposito and Ryan barely suppressed a loud chuckle and she heard Castle growl, clearly embarrassed by his ex-wife. She abstained from commenting, but deep inside she found the nickname hilarious.

"Nice bag by the way," stated Meredith glancing at the photo of a ripped handbag on the murder board. "Too bad it's fake."

"How can you tell?" asked Castle.

"Leather's quality is too low, the stitching is off here and here. It's a good fake, but it's fake. I've seen them all over the shops of LA after that article on Sarah Jessica Parker and that bag came out last week on Modern Fashion."

Meredith's unannounced visit turned out to be extremely important because after that they realized there was a link in their victims other than the voodoo. The first victim worked in a shop that sold fake accessories like that bag after all, so they want there to take a closer look at Charles Oni's shop, only to find it ravaged, with all the bags ripped open. There was clearly something hidden in them, smuggled into the United States from wherever those bags were produced. They had to find anyone that had bought that kind of bag in the past few days. And Oni himself. There was another symbol similar to those printed on the coins found in the victims' mouths, and that one meant only one thing: death. And by the intense stench, Beckett knew it was blood, not harmless red paint.

While her colleagues looked around for more clues, waiting for the CSU, she called an APB on Oni, careful to keep out of the intense sunlight. Those were the days she hated her job, now more than ever, as she had to solve murders and babysit a grown kid with the attention span of a puppy. Like when she closed the call with dispatch, because she found him ogling himself on the TV in the showcase of an electronic store.

His idea that maybe the video camera had recorded who had made that mess in the shop was a little farfetched, but he managed to convince her to try and ask the owner. She had to endure half an hour of him picking on her for not trusting him when the plan actually worked and they had found the camera that had recorded what had happened. She managed to make it stop with a well placed "Zip it, Kitten," but she had to admit he was being borderline impossible to bear with that day, more than the other days they had worked together. There was something going on with his ex-wife, she was sure of it.

Oni was quickly found while trying to fly back to Africa, and once they found the right keys to hit during the questioning, he put them on the track of Mukhta Baylor, an African war criminal that forced him to produce fake IDs for the illegal immigrants he smuggled in the States. Usually it was a small business for people he didn't care about, but this time it was personal; when he turned the shop upside down and killed those two innocent people, Baylor was looking for his brother's passport. It had been hidden in one of those bags that the first victim had inadvertently sold after the request for that specific bag had been raised due to that article, hence the escalation of violence

The nickname he was known for, the Butcher Of Benin, was more than enough to spur then on to find him as soon as they could. He had already put two bodies on Lanie's autopsy tables, nobody wanted a third one to be occupied.

Searching the place where Baylor hid left them with the camera he had purchased in order to track all the bags sold, a bunch of yoga schools flyers and Beckett harboring a murderous mood, that lasted until they arrived back at the precinct, and he managed to placate her with coffee and food. Not only did he have the worst idea ever by purchasing a personalised bulletproof vest that said WRITER instead of police, he had also defiled her orders by following them inside the warehouse and not turning his phone off. But when he had returned outside to make an urgent phone he had seen Baylor leaving in a big car but wasn't quick, or smart, enough to take note of the licence plate.

She was beyond furious, but he admitted he had made a mistake and had asked for their forgiveness, and she noticed after the failed incursion to Baylor's hideout his demeanor had completely changed, as he had become more careful with what he said and did. He actually followed her orders and sat silently as they examined what they had found in the hideout.

After all, it hadn't been completely useless. They had the camera, and they could do exactly what Baylor had done: watching the footage and looking for every person that had bought one of those bags from the shop.

They found the girl less then half an hour later. Identifying her took a little more time, but they doubted that without their resources Baylor could have already found her. As soon as they had a name and an address, Beckett called her and told her to stay inside her apartment and don't open to anyone until they arrived. No time to explain the details, she just told the girl she was in danger and they were coming to help her. No matter how much her skin itched while they rushed through the streets heading south, there was no chance in hell or heaven they'd let another person die that day.

When she and Castle finally arrived, Diana opened up and Beckett went straight to the bag on the counter. She ripped it effortlessly, much to the owner's disappointment, and found the incriminated passport. Just in time.

"What's that?" asked the girl after she had shown the document to them.

"This is the reason you're in danger. You got caught in a smuggling ring that used these bags as a way in the country for fake IDs," replied Beckett, checking the rest of the bag for anything else. Apparently, they had avoided the worst. There was nothing hidden except for that one passport. Now it was only a matter of securing Diana at the precinct and hope no one else bought that kind of bag in the past few days.

When she thought she could finally catch her breath for a moment and just take a moment to collect her bearings, she heard the distinctive click of a magazine being loaded in a semiautomatic gun coming from the hallway. She barely had the time to reach for her own gun when she felt Castle's hands on her back pushing her behind the couch right before a big black man appeared in the doorway, shooting half a mag on them. She made sure Diana was out of the way before she crouched behind the now torn piece of furniture and tried to shoot at Baylor, without success. There was a civilian that could get hurt in the process, not to mention that while she was pretty much invulnerable to bullets, they hurt like hell, so if she could avoid getting shot, she'd be a very happy person.

Baylor shot at them again, one bullet went straight through the soft padding of the couch and passed between her and Castle with a high-pitched whistle before it shattered against the counter behind them. Their eyes met for a fraction of second before they both scrambled behind it, definitely a better cover, while she covered their retreat by blindly shooting towards their assailant.

Once they were protected, she sagged against the closet, blowing a wild lock of hair out of her line of sight. "Fuck…" she murmured over the blaring noise of the gunshots.

"I didn't know you could curse!" added Castle.

"Yeah well I've got two civilians to protect and only two bullets in the mag," she huffed. "I can curse all I want, since I was so stupid I left the spare mags in the car."

"Can't you just jump over him and use your strength? You're a vampire for heaven's sake!" Castle's voice was little more than a whisper, hard to hear even for her with all the gunfire Baylor shot at them.

"Well, first of all, that would be considered police brutality and I don't want to be charged by a war criminal trying to get out of prison. Second, I've been shot before and I don't really want to repeat the experience. There must be a way to get out of this."

She looked around but saw nothing except a wine cellar and some kitchen utensils that  _could_ be used a weapon but nothing really useful. They were stuck.

Until Castle said something totally absurd. "What if a civilian intervenes to help you then goes away, remaining anonymous?"

"Wishful thinking Castle. This is New York, not Teletubbyland, people just don't barge in on armed men to knock them out then disappear," she screamed over the noise. Apparently Baylor had a huge stack of mags with him. "They hear gunfire, they duck and stay away from it."

He shook his head. "Not this one."

Then what he did made little to no sense to her. He took off his jacket then unbuttoned his shirt just enough to pull it over his head, discarding it carelessly on the floor. Beckett couldn't help but take a moment to admire his peak physique while he took his watch off too, feeling an odd warmth forming in the pit of her stomach even though they were in a dire situation and he was acting like a lunatic. Later she realized that  _lunatic_  was indeed the right word. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Ending this situation right now." His voice was different. Usually it had a pretty deep pitch on his own, but this time, it sounded more like a growl, but not the kind of growl a human would emit when pissed off or uncomfortable. It sounded more like an animal. He moved around so he was facing the counter then crouched, planting his clenched fists on the floor, like an Olympic athlete preparing for a sprint.

What happened next nearly gave her a heart attack. He closed his eyes, drew a long, deep breath and when he opened them again the bright blue had been replaced by a darker shade, nearly purple. The change started there, then she heard a loud sequence of pops and cracks and he arched his back, snarling like an angry wolf.

"Oh my God you're a werewolf!" she exclaimed, completely taken by surprise as Castle's bones and muscles literally moved beneath his skin, reshaping themselves into a new frightening form. He grew bigger and burlier, his broad shoulders expanded and the muscles and tendons in his arms tensed and his whole facial features shifted until they resembled a canine skull. When he opened his muzzle she saw his teeth had become sharp fangs, saliva trickled thickly off his upper canines and drooled from his… lips? She wasn't sure how to call the edges of his mouth now that he looked more like a dog than a human. He moved his hands and she saw that his nails had also become longer and sharper, resembling talons. Then thick, dark, long body hair appeared on the vast majority of his visible body, even in areas that were smooth before, like his upper arms.

The change had taken less than ten seconds, but to her it felt like hours. It was both fascinating and terrifying at the same time to see it happen so close, enough that she had been able to actually see every little detail of it.

In such a short time, he had turned into something completely new.

Gone was the big, goofy writer, the class clown that could make her laugh despite her better judgement, replaced by a creature she thought she'd never see in her life. Each time he breathed, a soft rumble came from his chest, along with the hiss from his open jaws. It was incredible to behold, she was mesmerized.

"Can you talk?" she asked, keeping her voice as low as she could. At that point, she knew for certain screaming was useless to speak to him, even with the echo of the gunshots resonating on the walls.

He shook his head. Clearly, the anatomy of his mouth and neck had changed so much that he was unable to form words. But he clearly could understand what she said and was patiently waiting for her to speak. He was the weapon, he was the spare mags she had forgotten. And he needed to know what she wanted to do with those spare mags.

Those incredibly hot spare mags, she thought.

"OK. Here's my idea. You jump out of the counter and over him, try not to leave any marks on him so they won't be able to track them to werewolves OK? Just scare him, pin him to the ground then let me cuff him. Like the idea?"

Castle nodded. "Go when you want. I'm right behind you."

He waited for Baylor to stop shooting just long enough to place a new magazine in his gun. He didn't even grab it from his pocket.

With a swift motion, Castle jumped over both the kitchen island and the couch right in front of Baylor. The warlord had barely the time to react when the huge werewolf - she had to say it, Castle was big, but right now, in his feral form, he was really huge - leaped over him and pinned him to the floor. Baylor tried to shoot him before Castle managed to throw him to the ground, but one quick swipe of his arm and the gun flew out of his grasp, too far for his reach.

Castle roared right in front of his face when Kate arrived to arrest him. By the time she had managed to juggle him so she could cuff him, Baylor was crying like a baby, pleading her to take him away from that beast. She couldn't understand half of his words but she was pretty sure he was praying so the huge, frightening creature would go away.

"Done Castle. You stay here, I'll call for back up so they can take him to the precinct. You alright? Can you… change back?"

Silently, he nodded and stood up. He waved at her, telling her to go downstairs and do her job.

"I'll be right back." Then she pushed Baylor out of the door to the elevator.

Halfway down the elevator ride, a bone-chilling scream of agony echoed in the building. It started as a howl then gradually became a human voice. Castle's broken, hurting voice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 8**

Castle waited until he was sure Beckett was far enough so she wouldn't see him as he reversed the change and returned to his human form. In the middle of a complete stranger's living room he let out a scream as he willed his body into his normal state. Bones broke and reassessed themselves, muscles, tendons and ligaments ripped apart and reunited. His teeth were reabsorbed by his gums with an obscene amount of blood dripping down his chin to his bare chest. The thick fur fell from his skin in tufts around him.

It was an agonizingly painful process, that left werewolves who were not so used to it like him drained, exhausted, and in a terrible mood. Sometimes it hurt so much they'd lose consciousness for hours.

It would have hurt less if he had waited twenty minutes or so, enough for the pain of the initial change to fade away, but a shootout meant other cops would arrive really soon and he didn't want anybody to see him like that.

Once he was back to his human self, he crashed on the ruined couch, a long wail escaped his lips as he ran his hand over his aching jaw. He hated it with all his might.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Turning around he saw Diane offering him a wet towel and his clothes, a sympathetic smile on her face.

"Don't worry, I'm not scared. My brother is an apparent," she calmly explained as she walked to the fridge.

"Thank you," he murmured. He cleaned the blood from his face and chest, before he donned his shirt again. "I'm sorry if I scared you."

"The man with the gun was more scary. Werewolves? Nah, they're just big German Shepherds." She gave him a glass of water. "Here, take this."

He gladly accepted it, thanking her with a strained whisper. The cool liquid soothed his parched throat, making him feel a little better, but they both knew it was only temporary. One of the side effects of the lycanthropic shift, the technical term for what every werewolf called the change, was the thirst that came after a werewolf changed back to his human form, and she clearly knew about it. Be it for him, he'd drain the water supply of the building right now.

"I wish more people thought the same," he mumbled. "By the way, next time... Buy retail."

The girl laughed as she poured more water for him. "Good idea."

Beckett reappeared five minutes later. "You alright?" she asked, visibly worried.

Castle shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be fine. I just need to rest for a while."

He was downplaying it, hiding behind a stoic mask the pain that coursed through his body each time he moved. Even breathing hurt, and by the look on her face, she wasn't buying it at all. The legendary heightened perception of vampires deserved all its credit, he had to admit it. She wasn't even trying to hide the fact that she didn't believe him, it clearly showed on her face.

"Give me a couple of minutes, Espo and Ryan are almost here and Baylor is already on his way to the precinct, once they get here I'll take you home."

"No please, Meredith's there, I don't want her to see me like this, nor Alexis or my mother," he whined like a kid. He didn't care if he seemed ridiculous, he just wanted to avoid his ex-wife as much as he could.

"I have paperwork to do back at the precinct, do you want to hide there for a while?" she offered with a brief smile.

"Thank you. I really appreciate it."

The car ride was silent, but not uncomfortably so. Beckett drove while he rested, massaging his face from time to time.

"Does it hurt much?" she asked, while waiting at a light.

"What? The change? Yes, it hurts."

"Do you need anything?"

"To sleep it off for a couple of hours. It hurts so much because I changed and reverted in a short time. If I had waited for twenty minutes or so before going back to normal it would not hurt that much," he explained. His voice was low and quiet, so different from his usual cheerful tone it sounded alien even to himself.

"Do painkillers work with you? I have something at the precinct if you need it."

"Some Tylenol wouldn't hurt, thank you."

They fell silent again, lost in their thoughts for a long moment.

"Is Alexis..."

He stopped her mid-sentence. "No," he briskly said. "She's a latent, not an apparent, if you're worried." It sounded angrier than he wanted, but he didn't want to talk about it. She could ask all the questions she wanted about him, but he wouldn't talk about his daughter.

She threw him a killer look. "I was wondering if she knew about your condition, that's all. Whether or not she's a werewolf too doesn't matter to me."

"Oh. Yes she does," he murmured. "I'm sorry Beckett, I shouldn't have snapped that way. It was uncalled for. It really doesn't matter?"

She shook her head. "Why would it matter? I'm an immortal myself, it would be extremely hypocrite of me to think less of a lycanthrope, don't you think?"

"Most people, some vampires included, consider us nothing more than domesticated beast, you know."

"Well I'm not among them, OK? My parents taught me to respect those who respect me and for now you've always shown me a lot of respect, so don't worry about that."

He remained silent and leant against the cool window of the car. Her words had made the pain just a little more bearable.

As soon as they arrived at the precinct they headed straight to the break room. Castle crashed on the couch, tired and hurting, while Beckett went looking for her stash of Tylenol buried somewhere in her desk drawer. Contrary to popular belief, immortals were immune to poisons and adverse effects of drugs because of their improved healing factor, but drugs like painkillers worked just fine, they had their effects on their metabolism. Lucky for them, because immortals had period cramps too after all, sometimes worse than normal human beings.

When she returned to the break room, there was a cup of steaming coffee waiting for her on the table. She couldn't help but smile. "You didn't have to."

"Didn't take long. Also I wanted to apologize for not telling you."

"I'll take the apology for acting so reckless at the scene. You had your reasons not to tell me. Now take this and try to get some sleep, I'll cover you if people ask questions."

"What will you tell them?" he asked, popping the tablets in his mouth and swallowing them.

"Sudden migraine. Usually it works. Sleep now, I'll take care of the paperwork."

He leaned on the couch. It was incredibly comfortable, everything considered. "I don't want to cause trouble. What if Baylor says there was a werewolf in the apartment?"

She chuckled. "You think the jury would believe him? He's a war criminal, everyone will think it's just a lie to save his ass. And I don't think Diane will say anything about it."

She left him alone, closing the door behind her to let him have some privacy and tranquility, and went straight to Montgomery for a short debrief, before she started filling forms. Esposito and Ryan were taking care of the final crime scene and would interrogate Baylor as soon as they got back, and this gave her some time away from the sun. The last few cases had forced her to stay outside during the day for long periods of time, most of the leg work had to be done outside the vampire safe zones and the sun exposure was taking its toll on her. Being inside a screened building felt good, her skin didn't itch anymore and that feeling of weakness that came with sun exposure and the subsequent overworking of her healing factor was slowly fading away. Coffee helped too, that was for sure.

About an hour later, Espo and Ryan came back with a load of new evidence, ready to interrogate their suspect before he could ask for a lawyer. Ryan looked around looking for Castle. "The writer?"

"Sleeping in the break room. The shootout surprised us and the noise got him a sudden headache. I gave him some Tylenol and let him sleep," she explained, pulling another form from the small pile at her side. "Before you ask why he didn't go home, I have two words for you: ex wife."

The younger detective hissed as he sat at his desk. "Can't say I blame him for preferring that couch to the ex. You OK?"

She nodded. "Yeah, busy day, happy I'm out of the sunlight and happier we caught the guy. You two?"

"Baylor asked for a lawyer right after the DA office closed. We'll interrogate him tomorrow as soon he gets one. Can you send the official request?"

"Sure, I'll take care of it. You two go home and get some sleep, I'll see you tomorrow afternoon." She was trying to make them go away, allowing Castle to rest and get better without the guys making fun of him for not being able to withstand the noise of gunfire.

Without much fuss, the two detectives grabbed their stuff and went home, clearly happy as they had closed a hard case in one day. As they walked out, Beckett dared to slip into the break room and check on the writer. She found him on his side, arms crossed at his chest and a frown creasing his face. By the way he fidgeted and whimpered in his sleep he didn't look relaxed at all, not nearly enough for the kind of rest he needed.

A sudden pang of worry coursed through her mind, taking her by surprise. As much as she had come to respect him, she didn't care enough for him to worry about his well-being. Or maybe she did?

When had he become her friend?

She had told him about her mother, after all. He knew about her condition from the beginning, and he wasn't bothered about it. Maybe because he was an immortal himself and knew her struggle, only just from the other side. Thinking back, she found that the initial annoyance had become more and more bearable, until it had become respect and maybe the first stage of friendship?

He had shown nothing but respect for her, that was true, even his jokes where always respectful. She could do nothing but appreciate and return it. His mother and daughter too, they had welcomed her and been nothing but kind and friendly. His mother treated her like a daughter, and made her feel like she was part of their odd family. It was a feeling she thought she had lost when her own mother had died and that she had briefly found again when Martha had practically forced her to stay for dinner last week.

She wondered if his mother knew about him, then mentally scolded herself for the idiocy of that thought. Of course Martha knew, mothers know things like that. And she would also know what to do in this situation. She needed to speak to her.

She went back to the bullpen and grabbed her phone before she walked to the supply closet downstairs. She didn't doubt that her colleagues wouldn't care about her personal phone calls, but Castle didn't want his own condition to be public, for his own reason, and she respected his choice. Once the door was closed behind her she sat on a cardboard box while dialing Martha's number.

She picked up the phone almost immediately. "Detective Beckett, how nice to hear from you, how are you, dear?"

"Fine, Mrs..." She stopped before she could say more. She had forbidden her to call her Mrs. Rogers. "Martha. Just closed a case actually."

"That's great. Is Richard coming home?"

Kate sighed. "Well, about that... Something happened today and we got caught in a shootout."

"Are you alright?"

The fact that she didn't sound worried about her son spoke volumes. She knew he was a werewolf and she wasn't very preoccupied about it.

"Yes, I am, don't worry about me. The problem is... We were kind of stuck and Castle decided to do something about it..."

"He changed, didn't he?" asked Martha, her voice calm and strangely soothing.

"Yes, he did. Just for a couple of minutes, maybe less. He doesn't look good now though. I let him crash on the couch in the break room, he said he would sleep it off but I just checked on him and I don't really think he's sleeping fine. He looks like he's having nightmares and..."

"Kate, stop worrying about Richard," replied his mother. "Just let him be and bear his bad mood, if you can. He'll be fine, he just hates it."

"Yeah well, I gathered that."

"You know, the last time he changed was twelve years ago, when he received Meredith's divorce papers. He was so angry he couldn't control himself. If he did it on purpose, it means he cares about you and your well-being."

She chuckled. "He knows he shouldn't worry about me getting shot, he just wanted to end it fast but in a manner that couldn't be linked to me. He just scared the guy enough so I could arrest him. He could have avoided it."

"I'm sure he did it for a good reason, maybe a reason you can't understand. Werewolves are territorial, don't forget that. If they see a threat to someone they care about they act. They probably regret it later, with the pain, the discomfort and the moodiness, but they usually have good reasons to shift. I'm sure Richard will answer every question you have, if you ask him."

"I'm not sure he wants to talk about it," said Kate.

"Let him sleep, fill his stomach and pour the wine then he'll talk. Stay for dinner. Last week we had a delightful evening, I'd love to repeat it and I'm pretty sure he'll love it too. He really likes your company."

"I noticed. What about Meredith?"

"She's leaving for Los Angeles later tonight. She just got called for a role in a small but interesting independent film that starts shooting next month. You're more than welcome, with no ex wives to ruin the fun. "

She couldn't find any other excuse not to accept the invitation. And to be honest, the idea of not going home alone with Thai takeout and the sole purpose of catching up on Temptation Lane wasn't that bad. "Alright, I'll stay for dinner. But only if Castle agrees."

"He will. Is pizza alright with you?"

Oh, he wholeheartedly agreed.

As groggy as he could be, Castle dragged himself out of the break room and into his customary chair about two hours after he had taken possession of the couch. He looked a little better, less drained. His face sported some color, his eyes had a little bit of light in them too. Although not exactly in the best shape, at least he didn't look like a wet mop like when she had left him alone.

She quickly filled him on his mother's dinner plans, and couldn't help but smile when he let his head fall back in relief as he learned that Meredith was leaving. As for dinner, he was enthusiastic. Still groggy, but enthusiastic.

They arrived at the loft less than thirty minutes later, just before Meredith left. A quick goodbye and she was out of the door and on the way back to LA. Beckett had the feeling Meredith had sensed something was wrong with her ex-husband and had decided to leave him be. After all he did look like something was wrong, she didn't need heightened perception skills to see it. Alexis also noticed something was wrong with her father, but she said nothing. After all he was home and he was laughing, it couldn't be that bad.

If she only knew.

Dinner was quiet and relaxed. The pizza was good, wine was better and the company was just perfect. Castle finally looked like his normal self, clearly feeling better after four hours, and all the worry slowly faded away.

Only to come back when Alexis disappeared upstairs to finish homework and Martha announced she was meeting some friends downtown. They were left alone with the dishes. When his mother closed the front door, Beckett couldn't help but laugh at the weird situation they had been thrown into. "Looks like they planned it."

He shrugged. "Wouldn't be too surprised. My mother has been trying to find me someone since Gina and I broke up last year." He stood up and gathered the plates before he moved to the sink.

"And your daughter?"

"An accomplice. The perfect one, sweet and innocent and diabolical. Those two are unstoppable," he stated. "Would you like to stay for a movie or something?"

"Trying to seduce me?"

He chuckled. "Not tonight. Just enjoying the company. Choose a film, get comfortable and wait until I finish here. Won't take long."

She grabbed the half empty wine bottle and their glasses, moving to the living room. She perused the extensive collection of films, neatly arranged in rows on a shelf under the giant HD screen hanging on the wall in front of the couch. There were classics and newer ones, from comedy to drama and sci-fi, the whole Disney collection from Snow White to UP. She also noticed an XBox 360 and a Playstation 3 and the signs of wear on the pads set beside the two consoles. Being stuck inside the house for days sometimes she knew the entertainment value of videogames, and she had owned several systems in the years. She bitterly thought of the pile of games that rested beside her own Playstation 3 at home, covered in dust, completely neglected due to lack of time. Not that her to-read pile of books versed in better conditions.

She had to admit he had great tastes, and she still had to take a good look at his books.

"So, anything that strikes your mind?" he asked, carrying a giant bowl of popcorn.

"Got lost when I saw they made a game out of Andrzej Sapkowski's books," she replied, pointing at the case of The Witcher.

"Technically it's a sequel of the last book. The author worked with the developers to resurrect Geralt and start a new story. I didn't know you liked low fantasy books."

"I prefer science fiction but I don't disdain a well written fantasy book from time to time. I like how Geralt is a monster slayer by craft but takes the time to look into it, and often realizes that the real monsters are his own employers, not the monsters they pay him to slay."

Castle nodded. "There's a quest in the game that revolves around that theme, some people want him to kill a werewolf, but the werewolf is the captain of the guard, doing at night what he can't do by day. You can leave him be or kill him."

"Sounds a lot like what you did today. You did what I couldn't do."

"I did what I thought was right. There were innocent lives at stake, not only ours."

She picked up the case of Sin City. "Yeah well, thank you nonetheless. Now, let's see how Robert Rodriguez managed to pull something good out of Frank Miller."

They were fifteen minutes into the movie when she caught Castle rubbing his jaw. He hissed, quietly, a couple of times while doing that. She could read it on his face that he was still suffering.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked.

He nodded. "From time to time. The facial bones take longer to settle. I'll have some minor aches and bleeding gums for a couple of days, that's all."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

For a moment she pondered on her question, trying to decide if it was worth it to ask. She didn't want to intrude, it was clear he was a very private person and she didn't want to make him uncomfortable, not after today.

"When did you find out you were a werewolf?"

He smiled, looking down at his glass of wine. The red liquid suddenly looked extremely interesting, more than Jessica Alba in leather on screen. "I was thirteen. It was a long process though, not something that just happened. About a year before I started growing taller, I quickly became the tallest guy in class, and I lost weight. I've always had a sweet tooth and I was kinda chubby when I was a kid. In six months I grew out of that skin, I was suddenly tall and lean and I became good at sports. I thought it was only puberty rushing in like a freight train, and I have to say I kind of liked it. Then one night I was home alone, Mother was rehearsing her new play and I was doing my homework, failing miserably. Add the stress of the finals and the fact that I had skipped dinner because I had to study and the foul mood triggered my first lycanthropic shift."

"Oh... That's terrible!"

He nodded. "Terrifying. I was terrified. At the time, in 1982, the whole vampires and werewolves are real case had just become public domain and well, it wasn't easy. My mom found me in a corner of my room, crying my eyes out in fear."

She sighed. "I can only imagine. What did you do?"

"Nothing much. With time I learned to control it, the first time I managed to actually turn at will I thought I had it mastered, and in fact it worked. Now I only change when I want. My mother respected my decision and never told anyone. You're the first person I've... showed in ages. Last time I changed was when Meredith filed for divorce. Even Gina didn't know." He took a long sip of wine then set his glass on the coffee table in front of him. "What about you?"

Kate smiled. "Just like in a medicine textbook. I was fine when I was born, just a regular baby girl. All the tests were normal, only my coagulation factors were a little higher. I barely bled each time they did a blood work on me. When I was four my mom started to notice weird red spots on my skin after she took me to the park, I kept scratching them but they went away after a while. When I was six my parents took some days off and we went to the beach. A whole day in broad daylight and by dinner time I was nearly comatose. The accelerated healing factor had been overworking for hours, it had drained all my energy, and a sandwich and some fruit didn't replenish it at all. They thought I had something like meningitis, considering how fast I had gotten worse, so they took me to the nearest hospital." She took a long sip of wine and set the glass on the coffee table. "A battery of exams later, two neurologists and a geneticist just out of med school that was really into the study of immortals, it turned out it was vampire related porphyria."

"You didn't have any symptoms before that?"

She shook her head. "No. They told me I'd always squinted my eyes a lot when we were out. They thought I had sensitive eyes and got me to wear sunglasses. And I was anemic, but that's a broad symptom, I was given iron supplements and that was it. Nothing else. My condition actually never bothered me much until my parents informed the school. That's when the problems started."

"Believe me, I know. I lost so many school days because of the uncontrollable shifts that left me unable to move for days... I had to convince my mother's doctor to write me a fake certificate to justify them or I would have failed the year," he confessed, laughing.

"Never had that problem, but after 1986 my parents had a hard time finding a school that would take a vampire in their ranks. You know, after that doctor blamed the AIDS epidemic on homosexuals and immortals?"

He growled, clearly angered by the memory. "How can I forget? I was terrified someone would find our I was a werewolf for months after that... Is that why your mother started working for the acknowledgement of immortal civil rights?"

Her neck snapped towards him, shocked.

"How do you know about my mother?" She didn't tell him her name the other day when she had told him the story.

"I have a good memory and a more than decent ability to follow leads. No really, I was seventeen when I first heard of her, during a rally for the immortal civil rights movement. The first time I heard her speaking, I thought she was the voice of reason in the midst of people that kept screaming nonsensical bullshit that had nothing to do with us."

Beckett nodded, twirling her chalice of wine between her fingers. "Yep. I was still too young to understand, but I knew she couldn't keep quiet when she saw injustice around her. She wasn't active only for the cause of immortals, you know, but as the first human outside the scientific community to speak for the immortal cause, she made a lot of noise at the time."

"She did a lot of good for us," he mumbled.

"You have no idea. I can't even think about what it was like to live with our conditions before the civil rights movement came along. It's tough now, I don't want to think about how it was before," she stated.

"You can always travel outside the US. Try Italy, for example. Last time I was there, they treated immortals the same way they treat homosexuals. They barely tolerate their presence, and they have no rights. There's no law for UV screened windows in public places, schools can reject or expel immortal kids based on their conditions and not for their actions or bad grades... And not only there!"

"Believe me, Ukraine is worse. And before you ask, no, I don't wanna talk about it," she stopped him before he could say anything related to her stay in Ukraine during college.

"Alright, I won't ask. But… really… it could really be worse now. Remember when people were convinced vampires and werewolves were mortal enemies?" he asked, joking. He really wanted to change subject.

"Ah, I had to answer that question throughout high school and college. Really, it's written in every basic biology book! We can't even detect each other, how could we be at war! I mean, it's not like a vampire can find out a person is a werewolf or another vampire by smelling him or her!"

"People are stuck with what's written in the books. I mean, I love Dracula and everything, but really… there's no war or anything," he replied.

"If real vampires and werewolves were at war like in Underworld, we'd be estinct by now. How often comes the genetic mutation in werewolves?"

"About one in 100.000 born, but only one third of them are apparent. The rest are latent, like Alexis. They have all the characteristics but they're not able to do the lycanthropic shift, they miss that particular gene. Basically they're normal human beings. Just… stronger. Some specialists don't even call them werewolves. I hear vampires are less common though."

She nodded. "Yeah, about 1 in 200.000, slightly more common than normal congenital erythropoietic prophyria, the original disease vampire related porphyria evolved from," she explained. "Just… we don't have a distinction with latent and apparent from. If something's missing in your DNA you're a carrier. We're not that many, if we were at war too, we would have been gone for centuries."

"Too bad, you'd be something to behold in latex and corset."

"Cool down Lucian, and watch the movie."

He sighed. "Damn you're so hot when you go all nerd."

After that, they fell silent and kept watching the movie for a while, before a wide splatter of blood on screen made her run her tongue against her sharp canines, drawing a teeny little drop of blood. A reflex that she was never able to suppress, each time she saw blood somewhere. Even on screen. She only managed to stop at crime scenes, out of respect for the victim.

"Stop doing that, please," he pleaded, eyes never leaving the screen.

Her face scrunched in a questioning smirk. "What? Do what?"

"The smell of blood, I'm kind of sensitive about it."

"Castle, that was just a drop, what the hell you do when Alexis has..."

He covered his ears. "Don't even mention that, please! And I've learned how to deal with it. With time."

"You better start learning to deal with me too, you know. Not only with this little reflex I have."

It was his time to look confused. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "I get my period too, Castle!"

"I know Beckett!" He jumped a little bit in the corner of the couch. "I know very well you do, why do you think two weeks ago I stayed home writing for three days? I almost changed when I realized..." His voice trailed off and he hid behind his hand. The death glare she was sporting was more than enough to scare anyone, he was no exception. She'd have to remember that.

"Well, that was embarrassing," she said.

"Could be worse. Imagine if I had actually gone through an involuntary shift at the precinct!" he joked.

She had to agree with him. That would have been definitely worse. "Thank God you didn't!"

"How the hell did we end up talking about periods?" he asked, after a moment of quietness filled only by the hum of the television.

"Because I grazed my tongue and I lost a couple of drops of blood. And because you're a wimp that gets all flustered around blood. That's why. Come on, let's watch the movie, it's getting to the fun part."

Later that night, when Martha did a little bit of a walk of shame, without the shame, she was surprised to find a light coming from the living room. She made a small deviation there, to find her son and Detective Beckett fast asleep in the couch. Richard was reclined in the corner, an arm resting on the backrest and his feet propped up the coffee table. Detective Beckett lay on her side, her head propped on his thigh like a pillow and her legs curled against her chest.

She shook her head, smiling. It was three in the morning and those two had fallen asleep watching a movie. She glanced at the TV screen, saw the title menu of Sin City and she grabbed the remote to turn off both the TV and the Blu-ray player. She walked towards her bedroom but before retiring for her beauty sleep, she grabbed a blanket from a closet and went back to the living room. Knowing all too well that her son didn't like being covered as he slept, she took good care to wrap the light quilt over Kate, making sure she would sleep fine until morning or whenever they decided to wake up.

Sighing, she couldn't help but think about how fast their weird relationship was growing.

And she didn't mind at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 9**

Something was wrong. Well, not wrong, just weird.

Better, something was off.

There was a noise, barely audible but persistent, that was working double effort to pull her away from her much needed sleep. Wrapped up in a warm cocoon, she didn't want to wake just yet. She felt it was too early, her biological alarm clock wasn't even close to her usual wake up hour, and yet that noise wanted her to wake the hell up.

Then her pillow moved, shifting beneath her head.

She opened her eyes and, confused, looked around. The dim lights coming from the windows were more than enough for her to realize that she wasn't in her bedroom. She looked up and saw the snoring writer sprawled beside her on the luxurious couch. That made her realize she had fallen asleep in Castle's living room. And she had been using his thigh as a pillow. Drooling over his jeans. Gross...

Maybe it was the drowsiness, or she had just lost her mind but the whole situation they were in amused her. She rubbed her eyes as she sat up straight, smiling briefly. The evening had been extremely pleasant, they had talked for a long time, discovered that they had a lot in common and surprisingly, she had found out that there was more than the class clown in Richard Castle.

Her mind went back to the moment, not even twelve hours before, when she had found herself wondering if she had started considering him a friend. Falling asleep on him, on his couch, after dinner with his family and a movie definitely meant she considered him a friend, she couldn't deny it anymore.

That weird feeling of kinship that had bugged her for weeks now had a reason to exist. It was almost an instinctual bond that had started forming the moment he had put his jacket over her head to protect her eyes from the sun, right after they had arrested Tisdale. His non-reaction to her condition had a reason to be, after all.

As did the sudden need she had to protect his privacy once she had realized he didn't want people know about the lycanthropy. By the way he talked about it and from what she had gathered from Martha, it was more than obvious that he wasn't fond of his own genetic anomaly. And by the way he had snapped interrupting her when she had asked about Alexis knowing about it, he actually hated it.

He hadn't changed in more than a decade before yesterday and he had clearly become extremely skilled at hiding his own condition. That was a hell of a positive streak, in her opinion. He had broken it to help her come out of a stalled situation that could have been resolved in thousands other ways. Or by simply waiting for a patrol to arrive, gunshots usually led people to call 911 pretty quickly. For that, she would be forever grateful.

Taking a deep breath, she turned towards him and took a good look at his sleeping form. He had nothing in common with the man that had taken a troubled nap in the break room, he was relaxed, peaceful. One arm was hanging on the back of the couch, the other rested in his lap. His head leant on the backrest, jaw slack and slightly open. He was snoring, not very loudly but enough that she could hear it. It was different from the sound she was used to hearing. Her father snored a lot, she remembered hearing him from her bedroom when she was younger and she had her fair share of boyfriends that snored too, but the sound was nothing like Castle's low, vibrating rumble.

She wondered if Meredith's nickname for him,  _kitten,_ came from those sounds. He sounded like a cat happily purring in his sleep.

Then the image of the huge, frightening creature he could become washed away all pretty, replaced by the weird thoughts about cuddly cats.

She wasn't scared by it, not at all.

She knew very well that werewolves were not dangerous per se, just like any other human being. He was the only lycanthrope she knew, but her mother had insisted she knew about both genetic anomalies, not only vampirism. Werewolves were not inheritably dangerous, like some people believed. They weren't domesticated beasts, like he had bitterly pointed out. They were human beings with a better chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse, as her mother used to say.

She was sure Castle would love that definition.

She attempted to move, to stand up without waking him, but she didn't even get to lean enough in order to grab her shoes when he joltsed on the couch, wide awake and disoriented. "What..."

"Relax Castle, we fell asleep on the couch," she murmured, her hand on his shoulder in the attempt to calm him. He was visibly confused.

He looked around, realized where they were then leaned back on the sofa. "What time is it?"

"Almost four in the morning. I'm going to go."

Scratching the stubble beneath his chin, he groaned. "You can crash here if you want. The guest room is ready if you prefer to stay."

She shook her head. "Thank you Castle but I don't want to overstay my invitation. And you should sleep in your bed, you know," she replied.

Standing up, Beckett folded the quilt and carefully put it on the armrest, then she slipped on her shoes. Castle never took his eyes off her.

"Next time then," he murmured. "Listen... About what happened yesterday, do you mind keeping it for yourself?"

She shrugged. "What happened yesterday?"

He smiled, that dopey smile that made her stomach churn, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

"You'll come forward with the others when you want, if you want. Don't worry about it." She moved towards the door but turned around when an idea came up from the back of her still sleepy mind. "Just, next time you pick up something… a trace or anything, tell me. Don't come up with lame excuses like you did with Chloe, OK?"

"You knew then!?"

"No, I didn't," she explained. "I just thought some things you said were weird for a human being. I convinced myself you had a finer sense of smell than a normal human. Let's just say I had suspicions that there was something else about you. With that said, it's bedtime for both of us. I'll call you if we have a body."

With that said, she finally went hom. At that late hour, the traffic wasn't an issue and she arrived home really fast. It took her more time to find a parking slot than the real trip from the loft. Once inside the safety of her apartment, she felt the weariness of the day hit her in the back of her head, like an invisible baseball bat had been swung right at her. She went straight to her bedroom, slipped into something more comfortable and sneaked beneath the covers. She was quite sure she was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

Much to her dismay, when she woke up late that morning, groggy and in great need of her wake up dose of caffeine and her daily iron supplements, she realized she had slept better on Castle's couch than her own bed.

That was fucked up on so many levels she couldn't even count them. Girl's night out with Lanie was urgently needed.

They didn't have the time to go out. A case dropped later that night, and it was a gruesome one.

The same moment she parked her cruiser near the building where the murder had been committed, Beckett had a sense of deja vu that brought her back to another case from three months back, maybe four. Home invasion and aggravated assault. They hadn't worked on it because it wasn't homicide, but rumors traveled in the force and she had the feeling these guys were on a steep path of escalating violence. They had been a step away from killing someone already after all.

This time though, they went completely overboard with violence and rage. She was still in the hallway, just out of the elevator, when she picked up the extremely intense smell of blood coming from the open door. She instantly regretted calling Castle, as soon as she had been summoned to the crime scene; all that blood was making her sick, and she had a disease that compelled those who suffered from it to look for fresh blood sources.

Castle wasn't used to it and had admitted he wasn't a fan.

Before she entered, she sent him a quick text to warn him, then followed LT's directions to find the crime scene. Not that she needed much help though, she just needed to follow the blood and Ryan's loud, convulsed sneezing. And knowing about the only thing that could have him sneezing that way; goose feathers, she wasn't surprised when she found Lanie taking notes surrounded by white and crimson-stained plumage.

What she wasn't prepared for was the open wall safe and the body shoved inside it.

"What the fuck?"

Castle had arrived. He was right behind her. And he looked just as shocked and uncomfortable as she did. He had probably missed the warning text, judging by how pale he was. With a nice shade of green too.

"Right choice of words, Castle," said Lanie. "These guys are getting worse and worse each time."

He covered his nose and mouth with his hand. "You know who did this?"

"Not yet," added Beckett. "We're pretty sure they are a gang of thieves that started targeting rich people three months ago. They've already used violent methods, but this is the first time they have killed someone."

"By the way they escalated, it's a wonder that this is only the first victim that landed on my table. I really hope there won't be a second one."

Castle nodded. "I agree with that." His voice was strained and whiny, he was trying to hold on to his self-control to refrain himself from throwing up or change, Beckett could read it on his face and body language.

"What can you tell us?" she asked Lanie.

"Not much except she was shot. Large caliber, maybe a .45, considering how big the exit wound is. They also broke many of her bones, post-mortem I hope." She then walked closer to the wall and took the woman's hand. "They used a bolt cutter for this."

Beckett shook her head, disgusted at the sight of the cut off finger. "The wedding ring too… We've got to stop them. And we've got to stop them now."

They threw themselves into solving the case with little consideration for the rest of the world. The whole team, Captain Montgomery included, worked restlessly the whole night while waiting for forensics. Not that they were expecting much from the lab, the last few times they hadn't left much behind. They were organized, more than capable at their craft and extremely violent.

Castle could barely believe there was someone out there that thought killing a woman and stuffing her inside a wall safe was something they could do. In his books he had conjured even worse scenarios, but seeing it in real life? Totally different.

He was still rather queasy after the crime scene, he could feel his stomach churning and a couple of times he had to fight the urge to rush to the men's restroom to throw up. It took all his self-control and some dodging of the murder board to keep everything down.

During a small roundtable they decided to look into different leads, with Ryan and Esposito chasing down the thieves while he and Beckett worked on the victim, Sofia Delgado. Not that it led to much more than what they already knew, that thieves were looking for the jewels and only them. What they didn't find made them extremely on edge, most of all Beckett. The frustration of not having any lead except a well-known thief with a sewn mouth angered and hyped Beckett to the point that she disappeared after a while, so swiftly he didn't even notice she was gone.

"Ryan, have you seen Beckett?" he asked, coming out of the break room with a cup of coffee intended for her.

The detective looked around, puzzled. "No idea Castle. She was here a moment ago."

"She's downstairs, at the range," interjected Esposito. "This case hit her hard bro. She needed to relax for a moment."

At the shooting range? "Where is it?"

"Underground, go downstairs to the basement. Follow the noise."

Oh, he could follow the noise alright. He followed the directions and then the gunshot noise. He had hoped he'd never hear it again, so loud and just terribly disorienting as it was, but if he had to get her out of there, he would stand that damn noise.

He closed the door behind him and found her alone in one of the booths, emptying a mag on a target. And she looked pissed.

"Wouldn't it be more of a challenge if they were moving?"

Groaning, she dropped the gun on the table in front of her. "What the hell do you want Castle?"

He sighed. "Beckett, I know you're frustrated, but there are better ways to relieve it!"

She shook her head. "Like what?"

"I don't know, it depends... I use those stress balls and Internet porn, you have to find your own."

"Shooting works just fine, Castle. No need to worry about it."

Damn she was angry. Really angry. "Listen, I get it, you're pissed off, there's no need to ask a shrink to understand what is going on with you. This case reminds you of your mother."

She didn't answer him, she just loaded a new mag and unloaded it on the frame in front of her. He barely had the time to cover his ears with his hands to muffle the noise. He'd had enough of that damn sound for a lifetime.

The hole in the paper target's chest was huge. He didn't really want to be on the other side when she had a gun in her hand, it didn't matter if his healing abilities were more than enough to save him from... Seventeen nine-millilitre bullets.

Well, he wasn't really sure about that.

"Beckett, stop for a moment!"

"And do what? Castle, we're stuck! We don't have forensic evidence, the only guy that could know something is in holding but he won't talk. We're not going anywhere with this case and those bastards could strike again tonight for all we know!"

There was a hint of desperation in her voice that made him falter. Maybe she needed to be left alone to deal with the stress her way, but there was something in her that pulled him, he couldn't just leave her in that state, not after what she had done for him barely twenty-four hours ago.

She needed a laugh. And he was good at making her laugh.

"Can I try?" he asked, completely changing subject. Surprise was written all over her face.

She took off the earmuffs. "What? Shooting? Do you even know how to handle a gun?" she asked, loading another target and sending it to the far end of the range.

He shrugged. "In theory. I've written characters that handle guns, you know."

"Then you know that theory and practice are two different things." She grabbed a set of ear protection and glasses from a rack and handed it to him. "Show me."

Smiling like a kid in a toy store, he stepped beside her and took the gun in his hand. "You know how the safety works on a Glock?" she asked.

"The pin on the trigger, I know."

As the detective stood beside him, arms crossed and a skeptical grin on her face, Castle consciously assumed a wrong stance and pointed the gun to the stark new silhouette ten meters away.

The chuckle he heard told him he had succeeded, Beckett wasn't thinking about the case now.

"It's not a duel Scaramouche. Here..." She slipped behind him and adjusted his legs with her foot, then positioned his arms in a correct Weaver stance. "Hold your right fist in your left..."

He accidentally pulled the trigger when he felt her move close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her body, even through the layers of clothing. That and the heavy scent of cherries from what he thought was her body wash made him tense his hold on the gun. The bullet went straight into the protective wall behind the target, on its left side.

"Oops. Shot too soon."

"Oh don't worry Castle. We could always just cuddle!" she replied, smiling up at him. There it was, his goal. Getting her to release some of the tension in a more constructive way than shooting holes in a target with her gun.

And hearing her joke at his incompetence at shooting was all he needed to hear.

After that, the impasse seemed forgotten. They went back to work, and Castle managed to persuade the thief they had in holding to reveal some information. He also managed to learn something from an old acquaintance, a retired thief, a legend in the field, that tipped them off to check on the charity organizations the victims of the break ins supported. The thieves were after jewels, what a better place to wear jewels than a charity event?

All the victims supported many charities, but the only one in common was the New York Metropolitan American Dance. One of their events had been held a couple of weeks before the first theft, the right window of time for them to prepare the jobs. Further investigation revealed there was another one planned for that night.

And the tickets were just a phone call away.

He didn't have much time. Beckett had reluctantly agreed to go undercover with him and she had assured him she had an appropriate dress, but if his spidey - right, wolfie - senses had given him the right feeling, she was lying.

And if he knew women as he thought he did, five hours were not enough time to go out and find one.

There started his quest to find the perfect dress for Detective Kate Beckett.

"Mother, Alexis!" he bellowed storming inside the loft a short while later. "I need your help!"

His daughter appeared on top of the stairs, while his mother was already in the living room, deeply engrossed in the script she was reading. Both were not impressed by his noisy entrance. "What for?" asked Martha.

"Beckett and I are going out tonight." His mother's eyes lit up, of course. "Not in that sense. It's an undercover job, we have to… nah, never mind. I need to find her a dress, I don't really think she has the right one. And I need your help."

Martha chuckled. "I guess you already know her size."

He vehemently nodded. "Yes, Mother, who do you think you're dealing with? So, are you coming with me or not?"

Alexis sighed. "Only because if we don't you'll end up buying a dress that would only embarrass her."

He tried to find an appropriate rebuttal but she was right, he couldn't argue with that.

It had been a while since he had bought a dress for a woman without said woman being present, therefore he let his mother and daughter choose the place. They dragged him in a small boutique that even from the outside struck him as one of those places where you could find exactly what you wanted when you wanted, if you had enough patience to delve deep into it. In his case, an evening gown worth of the honor to be worn by Kate Beckett.

Alexis and Martha were so focused on the task they looked more like a couple of bloodhounds unleashed on a trail, taking up his mission as if it was their own. He watched from behind the front line as they swiftly moved between the racks of dresses for every occasion as they examined different gowns here and there, judging them like only women could. Too posh, too dark, too much cleavage, too slutty… at that particular dress, his mother shook her head and commented, "Not even the first draft of Nikki Heat would wear this one."

The slutty draft, the one he had scrapped like five seconds after he had finished writing the  _character profile_  down. Only the name had remained, the rest had been deleted as fast as light, under Martha's careful supervision. And yes, that dress was too much even for that version of the character.

Alexis was already proposing to move to another store when Martha let out a loud "Ah!" and walked towards them with a gorgeous deep red gown in her arms. He heard Alexis gasp in awe before he himself found he couldn't form a coherent phrase to describe it. "Richard, this is the one. Don't even dare to talk, this is it."

And she was right. It was the right one. Later, waiting nervously at the front door while Martha opened it, he knew it for sure. That dress, that shawl, and that woman were a perfect combination, way, way better than any fantasy he ever had.

Sometimes reality beat imagination by a long shot.

Her mother had defined her as  _stunning_  and stunning she was, as she stood there, on the doorstep, all shy and insecure in a role she felt didn't fit her, while in reality she looked like a fashion model straight off the catwalk. Such a stark difference from the strong, confident woman he saw almost every day at the precinct.

She looked almost vulnerable while his mother placed one of her necklaces on her.

Still, stunning.

It took her a while to feel a little better in the role. The car drive was almost silence, except for some briefing on the mission, as he liked to call it. Esposito and Ryan would pass as plain clothes security and be ready to intervene in case they needed it, and they would infiltrate New York's high society and gather information on what was happening around them. They both hoped to make it quick and painless, maybe even catch the guy that night.

As soon as they made their grand entrance on the red carpet, they realized that they wanted it to end quickly not only because there were lives at stake, but also because the whole world of charity fundraising events creeped the hell out of them. Cute, sly girls wandered around, talking to everyone with a large enough wallet to hoard new funds for their causes, celebrities seeking the right catch to secure their well-being and economic stability even after fame would abandon them…

Beckett even got to know that Castle had been nicknamed theWhite Whale, after his divorce had been finalized. Apparently, he was one of those good catches in a sea of rich sharks.

All seasoned with a splash of hypocrisy, just a pinch of snobbiness, and a whole lot of wealth that smelled sour for all the lies that had been told to ensure those who held that wealth could reach stellar high bank accounts. After all, that's how you become rich, by lying. Castle created elaborate lies on paper in a fictional way. Others lied on the tax return. Some lied about the materials used to make what their industries produced and slowly poisoned their clients.

They both felt like fishes out of water as they met at the bar, after a round of exploration.

"I need a drink," he stated, leaning against the marble counter.

"Damn, me too. But I'm on duty so I'll stick to water."

"We can't get drunk, you know that?"

She chuckled. "I know but…"

"Come on Beckett, live a little!" he exclaimed, turning towards the barman. "What do you want? I paid a small fortune for the tickets, we might as well enjoy the night."

"Oh well… Vodka tonic."

Time slowly went by and nothing happened. Until the auction was announced. The auctioneer was none other than his mother, who appeared out of nowhere with Palmer, the legendary thief that had tipped them into checking this kind of social event. He was torn between being furious or just plainly annoyed, but the feeling turned into desperation as Martha announced that in addition to a first edition of his first novel, signed and certified, the highest bidder would also have the chance to go out to dinner with him.

Obviously, all the single women looking for a nice, rich bachelor dived in the opportunity to catch the White Whale. It sucked, because he hated things like that. And he knew his mother was doing this as retaliation for not having invited her to the event too. The passive aggressive ways his mother could come up with to mess up his life were amazing, worth being written in a book.

Oh, Martha was definitely going to be in Heat Wave, and she wasn't going to be pleased about it.

He was pleading Beckett to buyout the other bidders, telling her he would repay every cent she spent into saving him and he could tell she was about to agree, when he noticed someone in the background taking pictures with a mobile phone. And not of the people around him, but of the jewels the women sported.

"Beckett, look!" he pointed at the guy, one he had actually met earlier that night but couldn't remember his name. "He's taking pictures of the jewels!"

That was their breakthrough. They proceeded with the arrest and the interrogation and finally they had a name, a face and an address to find the head of the small organization that had committed those murders. They decided to move quickly and asked for the warrant right away. It came right before dawn.

The sky was barely lit and the sun still low on the horizon when they arrived at the address they had been given. Beckett, Esposito and Ryan wore their vests and prepared a plan of action. Without much back up, they needed to be quick and precise at striking with the right timing.

"Castle, you stay here," she ordered him as he got out of the car.

"What? No! Why?"

"You don't have your vest and this is going to be dangerous. You stay here, for your own safety."

"I don't really need it, you know…" he whispered.

"Yeah, I know, but they don't. So to keep up appearances if you want to come with us you need your vest," she replied, sternly.

Grunting, he nodded. "Alright, I'll stay in the car. But next time…"

"Next time you bring your technically unnecessary vest and you can come with us," she murmured so only he could hear her. "Come on guys, we've got an asshole to arrest." And they disappeared into the run down building.

One minute, maybe two after they had stormed inside, a man that looked exactly like the identikit they had been given dropped on the hood of Beckett's cruiser, scaring the hell out of him as he played cop at the driver's seat.

They looked at each other for a moment, before the running murderer dropped off the car and told him to get out. Determined to remain where Becket had ordered him to stay, he didn't open the door but he couldn't do much when the man grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled him out, pointing a gun at his face at the same time.

He was going to run away if he didn't stop him. He had to do something, fast, to hell with what Beckett had told him to or not to do.

Possibly without changing, this time. It had been almost three days already and he still hurt from time to time, no need to repeat the show for a broader audience.

Acting completely on instinct, Castle turned and pulled the guy away from the car, then he grabbed the hand holding the gun and crushed it with his superhuman strength. The man cried out in pain and let go of the gun, which fell on the concrete with a metallic clink.

Time to immobilize the bastard.

But he had underestimated him. The guy was strong, less than him of course, still strong. He slipped from his grasp and angrily punched him in the face, hitting his left eye. Had he been a normal human being, his face would have been reduced to a pulp now. Instead, it just hurt, but there were no broken bones. Maybe in the other's guy hand, but his ruggedly handsome face was intact.

That spurred him to act more quickly in order to stop him. He could hear Beckett's high-heeled steps coming down the fire escape stairs, not too far away, and he wanted to have him ready for her to arrest him.

Growling loudly, he pushed the guy away from him, against a wall. The force of the impact sucked the air out of his lungs and stunned him for a moment, but he had made the mistake of pushing him in the same direction the gun had landed.

In the split second he decided to jump and shove the gun away from him, Beckett arrived and kicked it away from him. "I don't think so."

She cuffed him quickly and led him to the car. "Hell of a fight Castle."

He nodded. "Thank you but… hit me."

The detective turned around, baffled. "What?"

"That man punched me and remembers it pretty well. I need to look like he punched me for real."

"What for? There was the stolen jewellery in the hideout, we have a witness that ID'ed him. You don't need to press charges for aggression," she explained.

"I don't want him to press charges against me for an excessive use of force though. I think I broke some ribs when I pushed him, I want to be able to claim self defence! Come on, left eye, all you need to do is to punch me. I won't hold a grudge, I swear."

"This is insane, you know?" She holstered her own gun then granted him his wish when he was not expecting it. A mean right hook straight into his cheekbone. Not at full force, sure, but enough to hurt him. Oh yes, it hurt.

He stepped back, holding the left side of his face. He felt the flesh swell beneath his fingers, pulsing in time with his heartbeat as the sharp pain raced through his skull. Nothing worse than the shift, of course, but it hurt. And would leave a mark for a while.

"Here, smile," she said, holding her phone up. "Let me take a picture so we can prove you were hurt."

Perfect, just perfect.

They left the hideout in the careful hands of Esposito and Ryan as CSU swept it for more evidence, while he and Beckett drove back to the precinct to press charges against that guy. Odd as it may sound, they didn't know his name yet.

Not that they cared much about it. All they cared about was the fact that they got him and that they could tell Joanne Delgado that they had caught the monster that had murdered her mother.

About an hour later, Montgomery came to Beckett's desk and insisted she went home. She tried to convince him that she wasn't tired and that she could at least start the paperwork, but the captain was adamant: he didn't want to see her at the precinct until the start of vampire safe zone that evening. It was an order and she had to obey him.

Not entirely happy with it, she gathered the box with the dress and Martha's necklace she had carefully wrapped in a piece of paper and placed it before they had performed the arrest in her desk drawer and went downstairs, intended on going home and returning it as soon as possible. The sun was high enough to hurt her eyes, but she didn't care much. Once she reached her car though, she decided to go straight at Castle's loft and take care of that right now. She just hoped she wouldn't intrude. After all, it was Saturday morning, maybe the Castle family liked to sleep in.

Apparently, they didn't. When Martha opened the door, they were gathered around the kitchen island, waiting for Castle as he prepared… pancakes, by the sweet smell that pervaded the air.

It made her realize she hadn't eaten anything in hours and that she was starving.

"Hey, Beckett, welcome!" he smiled. The bruise she had caused him was still dark and his cheekbone was pretty swollen, but it looked already better than before.

"Well, so much for vampires and werewolves not being at war with each other!" she exclaimed. Alexis stared at her, an inquiring look in her eyes, but Beckett caught Martha nodding to her granddaughter. The teenager smiled briefly then went back to her cereal bowl.

"I know right? Have a seat, pancakes are almost ready."

"Oh no Castle I'm not… I just came to give your mother her necklace I don't…"

He shook his head, waving the spatula in the air like a sceptre. "Nonsense, I heard your stomach growling while you were still in the elevator. Sit down and eat, it's an order."

Martha poured a cup of coffee and handed her sugar and creamer. "Come on dear, you have to tell us what happened!"

"Yeah, we only know Dad's side of the story," added Alexis.

Smiling, she did as ordered. Castle was right, Alexis and Martha were a diabolical team, when they wanted to be. She couldn't help but sit down, add some cream to her coffee and start talking.

And enjoy the delicious chocolate chip pancakes he served her a minute later.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 10**

The buzz of her phone on the nightstand startled Beckett awake from her fitful, well-deserved sleep. The last case had been a hell of travelling up and down the state, with reticent witnesses and fake identities to mix everything up and all she wanted was to sleep the week away. The last couple of months had been hell, back to back cases had filled their time and reduced her to a worn out rug. And Castle only made it worse.

More fun, but having to babysit him while solving cases was really tiring.

She grabbed the offending device and, grumbling loudly for the annoyance of being pulled from Morpheus' comfortable embrace, she looked at the caller ID. Captain Montgomery.

Screwing her eyes shut, she answered.

Life had taught her that early calls from her captain on a Sunday morning when it was her day off were never good. Something big had happened and someone had moved a lot of favors to have her called. Montgomery was religiously respectful of his men's days off, no way he'd call her for something less than a dirty bomb detonator strapped to a homicide victim.

She showered and got dressed as fast as she could, forgoing breakfast in order to arrive to the crime scene as early as possible. She barely remembered to take her supplements before she headed out of the door, quite sure she wouldn't see the inside of her apartment for a couple of days at least. There was something in the air, a sour note in Montgomery's voice that she had never heard. It worried her.

She hadn't even got out of the car that she had already spotted Castle walking towards her with two plastic cups of coffee and a croissant? She shut the door behind her and locked the car then waited for him.

"Grande skim latte with sugarfree vanilla and a bearclaw," he announced to the whole neighborhood.

Her breakfast. Her usual order at the coffee shop down the corner from the precinct.

"How do you know?" she asked, accepting the cup and the pastry from his hand.

"I'm a writer, my dear Detective. It's my job to notice things."

"I thought it was my job," she replied, taking a sip from the cup. It was indeed her order, just as she liked it.

"We do the same job, just in the different circumstances. And I have to say it's kind of easy to memorize someone's favorite coffee with a sense of smell as keen as mine."

She had to agree with him. It was definitely easier for them to notice things, and their sensitivity to body language, voice tone changes, and scents had helped a lot solving the previous case. After they had got rid of the obtrusive and revolting odor of motor oil that lingered on their clothes for hours. They had been so close to gagging at the same time while they were talking to Montgomery they had found themselves holding each other's hands in order to have something to hold on to. Awkward as it was, it helped them getting through the sudden spell of nausea brought on by the gross smell that wafted around them from Ryan's clothes once he arrived in the bullpen.

"True. But tell me… your keen senses were completely off the grid when you choose the cover art for Heat Wave?"

"What, you don't like it?"

She grunted. "She's naked!"

He shook his head, unable to hide a smile. "She's strategically holding a gun. And by the way the cover art is only available for subscribers to the website… don't tell me that…"

With that, Beckett turned around and swiftly walked towards the address she had been given. Castle followed her citing some well-known usernames from his website – names she knew for their interactions on the official forum but that didn't belong to her, fortunately – and before she entered the house, she finished the coffee and the pastry. LT, one of the officers that usually regulated security on crime scenes, greeted her and lifted the yellow tape as she crossed it. She didn't miss the killer look he reserved only for Castle as he crossed too, right behind her.

The apartment was bustling with activity, CSU was still working on the scene and there were two people, a man and a woman, visibly worried, talking to Montgomery. Once he spotted her, she saw him politely disengaged himself from the couple and walked towards them. "Detective Beckett, you're finally here."

"What's going on Sir?"

"A child was kidnapped."

Odd. "So? Why did you call me?"

"Because you're good?" proposed Castle.

"Doesn't matter. FBI has jurisdiction over child kidnappings," she explained.

But then the whole thing made sense. Behind Montgomery, the tall, blond figure of FBI Agent and last serious long lasting relationship she'd had, Will Sorenson appeared. Like a ghost from her past.

"Hi Kate."

She schooled her voice before answering. It trembled nevertheless. "Will. You're back in New York."

"Better opportunities than Boston. Been back for a couple of months. You look good."

She sighed. "You too." Then she walked past him and followed Montgomery inside the house. "What happened?"

Angela Candela, four years old, kidnapped from the living room while her father, Alfred Candela, was in an adjacent room painting. He didn't hear or see anything. Her mother, Theresa, was already at work. The little girl wasn't supposed to be in school due to illness, according to the parents, they said she had been home for a couple of days now.

The kidnapper had entered from the ground level window, took the girl and went away. No one saw anything.

The case looked frustrating just from the premises. And the way the parents bickered instead of collaborating made everything more discouraging. Child kidnappings were always messy cases, with distraught parents, countless leads - or none at all - to check, statistics that looked more like a death sentence hanging on the heads of the investigators like the Sword of Damocles… the list of anxiety sources for those leading the investigation was endless.

The first hours ran by with nothing more than interrogating Theresa's colleagues, family members, and friends. Nothing seemed to fit what had happened, every one of them had an airtight alibi. Nothing happened. Except for Sorenson and Castle arguing like kids in a sand pit, bickering about who made the best sand castle. No pun intended.

Until the parents finally decided it was time to tell the cops they weren't Angela's biological parents, but that she was adopted. When they went checking with the agency, it turned out that the birth mother had asked who the adoptive parents were.

Dead end again. But when they tried questioning the birth father, things started getting more complicated. While Kate was interrogating the poor guy, a veteran from Iraq that had sustained grievous injuries while on the battlefield, she started getting a little woozy. She and Will had been running all around town to check on baby sitters, friends, and that guy Theresa Candela had fired and that had threatened to make her suffer, and his car didn't have screened windows. And this guy worked in a parking lot, and though they were covered from direct sunlight, even the reflected rays were enough to make her skin itch and her eyes hurt.

The stress of such a high profile case didn't help. William neither.

The sooner they found that girl, the better. For the girl, the parents, and for herself too.

When Beckett and Agent "Broomstick-up-his-arse", as Castle had dubbed him, came back to the precinct after interrogating the biological father, Kate practically sealed herself in the break room, away from any source of UV light, and slumped on the couch. She looked totally exhausted when she exited the elevator.

Even though the bullpen was bustling with activity, its noise forming a cacophony of different sounds and voices, Castle could clearly hear the pain filled sob the detective released when she thought she was far away from everyone. Not even caring for his conversation with Detective Karpowski, he excused himself and quietly opened the door of the break room: seeing Beckett curled up on the couch holding a hand over her eyes to block the light made him hurt for her.

He knelt beside her and gently touched her forehead. "Hey, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Can you find the girl and send Will away?" she moaned, covering her face with her hands.

"I tried to follow the trail her scent left, but it disappeared just right out of the alley, I'm sorry."

"And that reinforces the idea that the kidnapper was organized and had an escape route and a vehicle. Thanks Castle, it's more than I could hope for right now."

"Well, it's not enough. I could try to scare Sorenson away, if you want though."

The smirk on her face made him cringe. "Don't even mention him…" she paused for a moment, before she finally took her hand away from her eyes. They were bloodshot and irritated. "We dated for six months, you know?"

"I gathered that you two had a story. You don't look too happy to see him."

Kate sighed and rolled on her back. "It's been a while but… when he decided to leave New York for Boston it hurt. I thought I was over him but it seems like it still burns. And him acting like nothing happened… I hate it."

"He mentioned you two worked on a case together," he said. "How did that go?"

"No reason to lie. We caught the guy, but he had already killed the boy."

"Sorry about that. What do you want to do now?" he asked.

"Sincerely? I just want to go home and hide, but don't tell the others I said that," she replied.

"Realistically?" he asked.

"Realistically? I'm gonna get some coffee and go back at the murder board to review what we know. Wanna join me?"

He nodded. "Since you ask so nicely…"

They kept working and working and working until Esposito called from the Candela's house: they had just received a phone call from the kidnappers and heard Angela's voice on the line too, confirming she was alive and apparently fine. They wanted a specific sum of money, delivered in a specific place at a specific time the next day. At that point, there was no need for them to remain at the precinct at that late hour, and most of them went home to rest and come back the next morning with a set of fresh eyes and rested brains. But of course Beckett had no intention to go, and Castle made no attempt to walk away from his chair by her desk. Too bad Sorenson was on the same wavelength. He didn't leave his spot in the conference room and Castle knew he was waiting for a chance to talk to her alone.

A chance he never had, and it didn't matter that the FBI agent carried a gun or that he could have him arrested for whatever reason. He could bite his head off his head, if he wanted. Not that he felt compelled to murder the poor guy that was now sitting in the conference room rechecking the backgrounds of every baby sitter that ever handled Angela Candela, but in case he needed to, he had that ace up his sleeve. He never left Beckett's side.

"Castle?"

Beckett's inquiring voice snapped him out of his train of thoughts. "Yes?"

"I was thinking we could go back to the crime scene, do what we did with the Cavanagh case. What do you think?"

"I think it's an excellent idea. Wanna go now?"

"Go where?" asked Sorenson.

"To the Candela's house," replied Kate. "Come on, we've got no time to lose."

The ride there was spent in an uncomfortable and tensed silence, with Sorenson driving, Kate stiffly sitting in the passenger seat and a very disappointed Castle that pouted in the back of the car, his arms crossed and his foot erratically tapping the hinges of Sorenson's seat. Just to bug him.

The Candelas weren't there. They had been temporarily moved to a safe location so the police could monitor the place, in case something happened and the kidnapper decided to do something to them too. If he, or she, had taken Angela for revenge over them, there was no way to know if the perp would decide to actually act against them. When they started looking around, Castle tried to turn on the light, but Sorenson stopped him. "Don't. In case they come back," he simply said, no other explanation added. The condescending tone made him sound like a parent scolding his child in public.

"Oh, you don't want to give away our presence, I see…" replied Castle. He looked at Beckett, and she just shook her head. Sorenson was being a passive-aggressive dick, but Castle had gone all over-protective of Kate, and the writer knew the FBI agent didn't like it. He was practically glued to her, almost to the point of following her to the women's restroom and guard the door, so he wouldn't enter. Beckett had to tell him to stop growling a couple of times, when Will had passed near her desk, that afternoon.

Not that Castle couldn't take his attitude, if Sorenson had sass, he had more. That remark about Nancy Drew? Easily avoided, much to Beckett's amusement.

They started looking around, silently. Everything looked perfectly normal, in the pitch dark house. The only noises were their steps, muffled by the moquette, and the random movement of an object as the three of them navigated through the house, rechecking everything from top to bottom of the house.

It wasn't until Castle entered the girl's bedroom that he noticed something was missing.

Around the house he had noticed many pictures of the girl, from when she was first adopted as a newborn to more recent times, and one constant was a white soft rabbit plush that Angela always clutched or kept close, like the proverbial Linus' blanket. But when he entered her bedroom, he didn't see the bunny among the sea of stuffed animals.

"Beckett?" he called. "Can you come here for a moment?"

Leaving Sorenson by himself, the detective arrived not ten seconds later. "Found anything?"

"I think it's more important what I didn't find." He picked a framed picture of Angela from a shelf and showed her. "See the bunny?"

She nodded. "Yes, I see it, it's practically in every photo around the house."

"Look around. Where's the bunny?"

He let her search for the stuffed animal for a while. "It's not here!"

"And it wasn't in the living room, where they said Angela was staying at the time she was kidnapped." Castle paused for a moment, before speaking again. "Am I the only one that's not exactly convinced by this whole situation?"

Kate turned around, hands on her hips, nodding. "No you're not. I think there's something wrong in this case, and it's not something we are doing wrong. I listened to the kidnapper's call recording and it was… I don't know… they seemed too calm, at least to me!"

"Yeah, that's what I mean. And… you heard the kid, that's not the voice of a worried child. You've been snatched away from your house, taken out of the window by an unknown person? She's four years old, she's aware enough to know something should not be right." he explained.

"Oh good Lord thank you!" she snapped, running her hands through her hair. "I wasn't imagining things then! That kid is perfectly fine, she's not stressed, she's not worried, that wasn't the voice of a kidnapped kid!"

"Exactly what I meant. That girl is with someone she's comfortable with, someone she knows."

"The parents orchestrated it all," he stated, pretty sure he was on the right path.

"Or one of them," added Kate. "With the help of… I don't know, a family member. They asked for a very specific some of money and Theresa said it's literally everything they have and…"

Sorenson appeared in that moment, probably called by their excited voices as they built their theory. "And what? There's no reason for any of the parents to steal the money from the others, you've seen them."

"You mean they're the happy couple that got their child taken away from them?" asked Beckett. "You saw that outburst Theresa gave early this morning, don't tell me you thought she was sincere!"

Will shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know Kate, she seemed pretty angry to me, rightfully so. And you, Nancy Drew? What do you think?"

"Oh please Will stop calling him Nancy Drew!" snapped Beckett. "You're absolutely insufferable! He's useful, you know that?"

Sorenson let out a snow snort, before he leaned on the door jam. "I have yet to hear something sensible from him."

"That's because you don't listen to him, that's why."

"Detective Beckett," interrupted Castle. "I appreciate your effort but Agent Sorenson here is just trying to do his job." The amount of self control he was expressing in that moment went beyond his knowledge. He didn't know he could keep calm that way after being taunted so bad. "Now, we've got a child missing and we need to find her before anything bad happens to her. Let's get back to work, shall we? And to answer your question, Agent, yes, I thought Theresa Candela was overacting. I've lived surrounded by actors all my life, I know bad acting when I see it."

Beckett nodded. "Alright. Let's not get away with random theories, let's stick to facts: the kidnapper knew Angela well enough to take the bunny too. He…"

"Or she…" added Castle.

"Or she knew that the bunny would help Angela remain calm and not scream her lungs out when they took her. That means premeditation and knowledge of the kid, and if they spent time planning the actual kidnap, they could have researched the Candela's finances too."

"Finally a reasonable theory," said Sorenson, a distinct mirthful tone in his voice.

"Shut up Will, you're not helping here," she barked, earning a scoff from her former lover. "Problem is: why target a normal family with a stay-at-home father that owns little more than his skin and the mother doesn't make much of a great living? They said they were postponing the renovations in the house to add the window bars on the ground floor because of money issues."

"And then the kidnapper asks for the exact sum of money the Candelas have in stocks and retirement plans. And it's not a small sum, if they really wanted to put those bars at the windows they could have easily done it earlier."

"Exactly what I mean Castle. That's why this doesn't make any sense to me. Also… the phone call came late, nearly ten hours hours after the kidnap. Which occurred rather early in the morning and…" Beckett stopped mid-sentence and looked at him, a flash of panic in her eyes. "Oh no…" she murmured.

"You're thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked, matching her own worry.

"I'm thinking that they didn't call earlier because they were hidden somewhere or because they had to stay out of sunlight. The kidnapper is just one person, who couldn't leave Angela alone, and the phone call came from a public phone."

Sorenson stood up straight from the door jam. "You mean Angela is…"

Both Castle and Beckett turned to him. "She's right in the typical time lapse of diagnosis and the parents said they were keeping her at home for a supposed disease and the fact that she was kidnapped on the very edge of the safe zone makes me think. There's only one way to answer that question," said Beckett. "Look around for concentrated iron supplements, specific sunscreen and any other prescription drug with  _erythrocyte-something_  written on it."

"And while we're at it, I'd look for any type of life-insurance stipulated for the kid," said Sorenson. "I have a very bad feeling about this."

Beckett gave him a nod. "You started thinking then."

He sighed. "I guess you were right about this. You think they're not happy with an adopted kid with vampirism and that they're trying to get rid of her?"

"Yes," interjected Castle. "And meanwhile, they're trying to get money out of it. I bet they won't be there for the exchange of money, or they'll do something that will cause us to lose track of it and then they will get rid of the kid. Insurance pays them, they get their money back and they can adopt another healthy kid. You interviewed the parents, did they look like they were…"

Beckett shook her head. "No, but neither my parents are. They're carriers, apparently. And none of them knew. Damn, if they're doing this just because she's sick…"

"Let's not jump to conclusions Kate. You two look for the drugs, I'll look for the insurance papers."

They found both, after a long search through the house. It took them nearly two hours to find both items. The drugs were hidden in the back of a closet in the kitchen, unopened. The prescription was dated a couple of weeks back. The life insurance, found in the parents' room, was stipulated earlier though, as soon as the baby had been adopted. Two weeks were more than enough to come up with the plan, organize everything, and get one easy million transferred to the family bank account.

Later, after Will had started an endless sequence of phone calls to the FBI, Castle and Beckett were killing time, waiting for the agent to be done with all his verifications, in Angela's bedroom. The writer was trying to hide it, but he couldn't help but feeling enraged about the whole story. "If they really did this only to get rid of a sick kid I'm gonna tear them to pieces and eat their flesh raw," he snarled, sitting on a chair in the corner of the room.

"Spare the liver for me then," added Beckett. Luckily they were alone, they could throw random dark joke about their conditions without risking people hearing them.

"No way, that's the tastier piece!" he whined.

"Also the richest in iron. I'm the anemic one, you're perfectly healthy."

"Speaking about health, are you taking your meds?" he asked.

"No. I left them home and I didn't have time to go and get them."

"Kate, you said it yourself: you have a medical condition that requires carefulness. When you came back to the precinct this afternoon you were exhausted from overexposure to sunlight. You're not eating right and you're not taking your medications, how do you suppose to work like this?"

She sighed. "I'm exhausted and my stomach hurts like hell. I'm in the middle of an acute attack triggered by the lengthy sun exposure, I'm going to be sick for days after this and I know it, but I can't just go home and barricade myself in there for days in order to let my body heal itself. As you said before, we have a missing child with the same condition as mine that has never taken her meds, she can't take care of herself, I can. She matters more than me at the moment."

He let out a long, deep, frustrated rumbling groan from the depth of his chest. "If I go out and fetch you a decent breakfast, will you eat that?"

Beckett shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think I can keep anything down at the moment, acute attacks tend to make me a little queasy."

"I don't even know what you mean by acute attacks, but will you try? Sorenson is doing his job, we're out of moves until he's done checking with Angela's doctor and the insurance company. We have nothing more than a theory at the moment and we can't back it up."

"Yet. We can't back it up yet, but I'm pretty sure we will. Once we have all the pieces of the puzzle we'll confront the Candelas and see how they react. Hopefully, before we're supposed to take the ransom to that damn park."

"I can do it, if you want," he proposed. "I can take the ransom and take a good look around. You know, better sight, hearing and sense of smell can help. And I'm not sensitive to sunlight."

She smiled, briefly. "That can be arranged, I think, though Will won't be happy."

"Will Sorenson can go fuck himself for what I care. He's your ex and he's not worried about you. To me, that guy is an asshole." That tore another weary smile from Beckett. He looked out of the window, moving the thick curtain just enough to let a ray of light inside. "Sun's up, you need energy if you want to keep staying in the sunlight for today. I'm going to get you breakfast, any particular request?"

"You already know my order."

There was a coffee shop just down the corner, it took him less than fifteen minutes to return and he found Beckett outside the Candela's house punching buttons on her phone. "News?" he asked.

"Oh, I was going to call you. Yes, we have a confirmation that Angela has vampire related porphyria. We called her aunt so we wouldn't tip off her parents. We're going to their motel so we can take them to the precinct and interrogate them. Jump in," she said, nodding to Sorenson's car.

He handed her the to go coffee cup and her pastry. "You eat this."

He couldn't miss the frustrated eye roll. "Alright I'll eat, OK? Just get in the car and be quiet."

But when they arrived at the motel, not a mile away from the house, they found Alfred Candela staring at them, totally dumbfounded as his wife had just bolted out of their room after receiving a phone call from her sister.

Beckett groaned, as she realized it was all a machinations of the girl's mother and aunt. Her aunt had kidnapped her and was probably conspiring to kill her. It was so sick on so many levels the detective actually felt nauseated.

"Sir, were you aware that Angela has vampire related porphyria?" asked Kate.

His face was the mask of panic. "What? No! Angela is not sick!"

"Mr. Candela," said Will. "We found the drugs in the back of a closet in your kitchen, hidden, the bottle still full. It looked like someone didn't want Angela to take them."

Alfred ran his hands over his pale face. "Madre De Dios… I didn't know, I swear! It was Theresa that took care of everything, she's the one with the insurance and… she just ran away, two minutes ago! What's going on?"

Castle looked at Kate, and she nodded, before she spoke. "Sir, we suspect your wife has conspired with her sister to kidnap Angela and kill her in order to swindle the insurance company. You have stipulated a life policy on Angela's life when you adopted her and it's worth one million."

"But why? She loves Angela why should she do something so horrible?"

"Sir, vampirism is still a high profile medical condition that not all people understand, there's a lot of superstition going around that causes intolerance, not to mention it requires medical care around the clock. Perhaps your wife wasn't ready to face it, or she didn't want to have a  _faulty_  child. You said you waited a long time to adopt her." He nodded. "Maybe she felt cheated on or treated unfairly, we'll never know unless we get to her. We suspect your sister in law has Angela, and we think Theresa is now heading there, maybe to finish the job. We called her and she probably informed Theresa that we now know about Angela's condition. Where do you think they could be?"

Candela shook his head. "I have no idea, Detective. I don't even understand how my wife could come up with something so despicable… I thought she loved Angela and…"

"Sir," snapped Castle. "We understand you are upset, but without your help we won't be able to find your daughter. From a father to a father, I understand your pain, but we need your help. Now think: where do you think they could be?"

"You can try at her workplace, her sister works downtown, I have the address somewhere at home, you can check there. But really, I have no idea where they could be."

"I do," said Sorenson. "Better, I have an idea for locating them. Let's go back to the precinct. Mr. Candela, go home. There's a patrol car in front of your door, I'll tell them to let you in. In case anything happens, call us OK?"

The man nodded, frantically. "Yes sir. Please find my daughter, I beg you."

As Sorenson launched a last attempt to locate Theresa and her sister by tracking down Theresa's cell phone, hoping it had a GPS feature, Beckett called an APB on both women, then sent uniforms to check their workplaces. By the time they arrived, Ryan had received a call from both patrol: the two women hadn't been seen at work for days, nor did they know where they could be.

"Fuck!" shouted Beckett, punching the hood of her car. It left a dent in the dark varnish. But what mattered more, at least to Castle, was the slight tremor in her hand as she desperately ran her fingers through her hair, in the vain attempt to calm down.

"Kate, stop it. You're no use if you let emotions rule you."

She whined. "Don't I know it? Castle, I don't want to lose this child. I've worked only two kidnapping cases, one turned out a massacre and this one is not going to end well if we don't do something right now!"

"And I understand! Don't think I'm not as upset as you are about this but I think I have a plan."

She raised her head and looked at him, straight in his eyes. Her stare was so intense it made him shiver. "What plan?"

"Let's go the place they picked to deliver the ransom. I know it's still early and we shouldn't be there before 2 PM, but I think it's close to their hideout. They're smart, but not professional criminals, they probably chose that place because it was packed with people and close to their base of operation. If I'm lucky enough, I might even pick up a trail."

"What if you can't?"

"Then we'll let Sorenson and his pals do their thing with the tracing of Theresa's phone. But at least we'd do something in the meantime, don't you think it's better than just sitting on our asses doing nothing?"

She sighed. "Yes. But what if they're there and we get caught?"

"You're a cop, you have a gun. I'm a werewolf, I can run fast. In case things go south, we can pull it through."

"Alright, let's go."

They reached the place chosen for the ransom exchange, a bus station about three miles away from the Candelas' house. It was close to a rather unpopulated industrial area, where lots of buildings were left empty by activities that had closed due to the recession, a perfect place for an hideout.

"Alright, now what do you want to do?" asked Kate as they entered the bus station.

Castle looked around, then he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was stale and saturated with different smells. Gas, overheated tires, humans packed in close spaces for too long and other different trails invaded his extremely fine sense of smell, but as used as he was, he could quickly distinguish them and filter what he needed. There was a residual trail, faint, but persistent. He could smell the scent of the Candela's house, a mix of water-based solvents, acrylic and oil based paint and a lavender ambient perfume that lingered from the clothes. It was stronger on his right.

Unconsciously, he grabbed Beckett's hand and pulled her in that direction. "Come, I found a trail."

She followed without hesitating, but in the corner of his eye he saw her reach for his gun. Always prepared.

Once outside, the sets of scents changed quickly. He stopped and concentrated again, finding the trail again. "It all would be much easier if I could just change," he muttered.

"Not exactly a good plan if you intend to keep your lycanthropy a secret."

"I know," he replied. "This way… the trail is getting stronger, I think we're close."

"What are you exactly following?"

"The mix of odors I picked up at the house. We didn't stay there long enough to be permeated with that smell, but Theresa and Angela did. One of them passed through here not too long ago."

"I'm betting on Theresa. Can't you be more specific?"

He shook his head, rounding a corner. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't have enough time to memorize the specific scent of each family members, but I remember well the scent of the house. How are you doing?"

"The light hurts like hell. Keep following the track, I'll text Espo with our findings. Let's hope we find them and they don't come for nothing."

Castle nodded and went forth on his pursue, sniffing the air like a bloodhound, or a hunting wolf. He could feel the feral need to change rippling underneath his skin, as he clenched and unclenched his fists in order to control it. His breath became a labored grunt, rumbling deep in his throat as he moved like a preying animal down the alleys, keeping his back to the walls. There were random spots where the trail was stronger, as if the person leaving it had stationed there longer. He used those spots to adjust his direction.

Soon they found themselves in the courtyard of a closed industry. Castle abruptly stopped, Beckett did the same behind him. "What's going on?" she asked.

"The trail is strong here. They're in that building," he said, pointing at a ruined warehouse in front of them.

She nodded. "Alright. I'm going front. You circle the building and enter from the cargo area. If we're lucky those are the only open doors," she explained.

"What if they're not?"

"Then we'll have to play it as it goes. Come on Castle, we've got a kid to save."

Silently, she walked to the front door, and at the same time, he tried his best to be as quiet as he could, running behind the building. The cargo door was closed, but there was an open window just one floor up from his position. He looked around, and when he was sure he was alone he jumped, landing straight on the window sill. Apparently, that floor was empty, but downstairs he could hear someone pacing in circles, or so he thought. He walked to the other side of the building and looked down to the front door. Beckett was leaning against the doorjamb, probably to give him enough time to position himself. Again, he looked around and saw a staircase leading down. Slowly and as quietly as he could, he moved in that direction. He had barely reached the top of the stairs when he heard the front door being smashed open. "Theresa Candela, Nina Gomez, you're under arrest for…" The sound of breaking glass and a crying child interrupted her. "Oh damn it!" he heard Beckett's voice say, angrily.

Unable to see what was happening, he moved to another window that faced the courtyard in the direction of the noises. Theresa Candela was holding a desperate Angela under the direct sunlight. It wasn't at its peak, but the UV radiations during that season were strong even at that hour. Not to mention the gun pointed at the poor girls head.

There were few things that could kill an immortal, but those counted for adults. Children, no matter how resilient, were still weak, compared to a fully developed immortal. At that age, a bullet could have killed the poor child, or at least leave her severely crippled.

Beckett jumped out of the window, gun pointed at Theresa, ready to fire. But most of all, she was standing in the sunlight herself. Again, he didn't miss the slight shake of her hands as she slowly walked towards Theresa and the girl.

Without even thinking, he jumped down from the window he had entered and ran towards the corner of the building. Pressing his back against the concrete wall, he dared to take a look at the whole situation. It was a sort of Mexican Standoff, with Theresa threatening her own child with Beckett trying to talk her down of it.

"Theresa…" her words were soft and calm, but he knew that deep inside she wanted to scream. "You don't have to do this. You're still in time to call this off and we can only accuse you of kidnapping. You don't have to kill her."

"She's a monster." At those words, Angela screamed even louder.

He inwardly cursed. Damned be superstition and hate speech that still saw them protagonists.

"She's a child with a diagnosed medical condition that needs her medicine. Vampirism is a disease, Theresa, a disease that can be kept in check with some attention."

"They are the spawn of the devil, they don't deserve to live. They're monsters, they don't belong to the world. They need to die. All of them."

Castle growled, feeling the rage flowing in his veins like liquid fire. He wanted that woman dead. Or at least in prison for life.

"Theresa, listen to what you're saying! You adopted Angela, you swore to love and protect her, and you did it for four years! Doesn't that time spent together mean anything to you?"

The woman shook her head. "I didn't pay to have a freak as a kid. The plan was working… how did you even find out she's a…"

"A Vampire? Because I am too!" shouted Beckett.

Theresa remained silent for a moment, but then she pointed the gun at Kate and pulled the trigger.

Castle was on her before the bullet could reach Kate. He heard the piece of lead rip through her clothes and her flesh, and her whimper of pain, but he was concentrated on tearing the screaming girl away from that sick bastard that she called mother. One swift motion of his hand and the gun went flying meters away from them. Theresa was then rendered harmless with a strong push that made her land squarely on her back on the ground, cutting the air from her lungs.

"You bastard…" he muttered, feeling his teeth become sharp fangs. He really wanted to eat her alive, as the monster she thought he was.

"Castle…"

He turned towards Beckett, holding Angela against his chest to cover her from direct sunlight. The detective, apparently safe and sound with just a graze on her shoulder from the bullet that had ruined her jacket, was walking in their direction, gun still pointed at Theresa. She knelt beside her, turned her over, face on the ground and proceeded to cuff her. Just watching her do something so simple allowed him to calm down a little bit.

"You alright?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, she didn't hit me, just grazed my shoulder and ruined my coat. It's already healed." In that moment, sirens came from the streets and less than ten seconds later half of the task force put together for this case arrived in that courtyard. Immediately, Sorenson, Esposito and Ryan rushed towards them, followed closely by Alfred Candela. The man smiled brightly as he saw his daughter, safe and sound, and ran to her. He had a dark towel that he used to shelter her from the sunlight as he cuddled her close to his chest. Both of them were crying in relief.

The two detectives from the 12th proceeded to pick Theresa Candela up from the ground and read her rights, while Sorenson escorted Alfred and Angela away from the light.

"OK, case closed. You now go home, take your meds and…"

He couldn't finish the phrase. He felt a heavy dead weight hanging from his right arm, and turning around he found Beckett sagged heavily against him. "Oh God…" he murmured, helping her to stand as she slowly slid down to the dirty concrete floor, apparently lifeless. "Beckett, come on, don't play tricks on me now!"

But when he moved her head so he could look at her face, he saw something that plagued his dreams for years. She was crying blood. Two thick streams of dark red blood ran down her cheeks and half of her face was covered in blisters, the other half was red and burned as if sunburnt.

"Fuck…" He picked her up bridal style and ran towards her team. Fortunately they were in a shaded area of the courtyard. "Espo, Ryan… Beckett's hurt, we need an ambulance ASAP!"

Ryan didn't have enough time to dial 911 that her body started thrashing about in his arms, convulsing.

Castle had never been so frightened in his own life. Not even the first time he had changed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 11**

The wait outside Exam Room 1 in the emergency room of Mount Sinai Hospital felt endless. Sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair, his foot tapping furiously on the linoleum floor, he waited for news on Beckett's conditions. They had arrived thirty minutes earlier with an ambulance rushing down the streets as the detective lay on the stretcher, unconscious, blood pouring out pretty much everywhere.

When they arrived, Castle was pushed out of the way of the doctors and forced to remain in the waiting room. Esposito and Ryan had gone back to the precinct and put him in charge of calling them as soon as he knew anything about her. Montgomery had called, about ten minutes after they had arrived at the hospital, informing him that her father had been called and that he would arrive as soon as he could.

And there he was, alone in a place that stunk of blood, disinfectant, stale sweat and death. The awful mix saturated the air, making his stomach queasy. He hated waiting. He still felt the rush of adrenaline brought on Theresa Candela's chase and arrest, the feral need to just let self control go and change right in front of that bigoted bastard that thought her own daughter deserved to die for something she had no control over. People like that deserved to be forced to live with immortals every day of their life. Death was too kind for a punishment, no, people like Theresa Candela deserved to live surrounded by the people they despised.

How could people still believe they were monsters, after all those years spent fighting to clean the names of both vampires and werewolves, he didn't know. In 2009 people still believed vampires drink blood to survive and werewolves hunted in packs during the full moon, chewing on still warm corpses of poor men and women that were too unlucky to meet the werewolves on their way.

He was so lost in his thoughts he barely noticed a middle age man that sat beside him. He sat with his arms crossed, silent. A black leather briefcase rested between his legs. A lawyer, probably.

"Here for someone?" he asked, quietly.

"A friend," replied Castle, not exactly keen on talking.

"Oh. I'm here for my daughter."

"Hope it's nothing serious."

The man shrugged. "I don't know. Her boss called me about an hour ago. Apparently she collapsed when she was at work and she was brought here."

Castle rubbed his face. "Same thing happened to my friend."

The man chuckled. "Because your friend is my daughter." Then he extended his hand to him. "Jim Beckett. I finally have the chance to talk to the famous Richard Castle."

Shocked, the writer shook Jim Beckett's hand and shook it. "Sir I..."

"Don't, Mr. Castle. I know who you are. I've seen your face on the jacket's of my wife and daughter's book for years."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. But I'm not exactly here to talk about your books. Captain Montgomery wasn't specific, but I understood you were there, when Katie collapsed."

He nodded. "Yes but I can't tell you much. We've been investigating on a child kidnapping and... well, the FBI wasn't exactly cooperating."

"Mr. Castle, you don't need to sugar-coat the situation. I know about Will Sorenson, Montgomery informed me about that too."

"Oh, alright. I guess the only issue here is the fact that she remained exposed to sunlight for too long, without her meds, no sleep and little to no food except for mug after mug of coffee," he explained.

"That sounds a lot like Katie." He sighed. "I just hoped she would be smart enough to stop before... before something like this happened again."

Castle wanted to ask him when it had happened before, but the door of the exam room opened. A tall, slim nurse in blue scrubs appeared. "You two are here for Detective Beckett?"

Both men nodded, but only Jim stood. Castle knew that they weren't allowed to disclose personal medical information with him. The nurse held the door open for her father, then walked towards him and sat on the chair at his side. "You're the colleague she came in with?" he asked.

"Yes, but we're not related so I'm not going to ask about her conditions, I know your policies."

"Well, I can't tell you much, but I think I can bend the rules a little and tell you that she's going to be fine. By the way, I'm Greg McClintock."

"Richard Castle, pleased to meet you. Can you tell me what happened?" he asked. "I mean, in general. I'm not an expert on vampire related porphyria."

"Oh, at least you know about it." He nodded. "Let's see... vampire related porphyria is a complex genetic condition that causes various issues. The most famous and evident is the photosensitivity, closely followed by strong anemia that needs to be kept in check with daily iron supplements. But there are other issues, like gastrointestinal problems, usually triggered by prolonged sun exposure, coagulation issues and so on. Stress and forgetting to take prescription meds can make it worse."

"She mentioned her stomach hurt this morning."

The nurse nodded. "That is usually the beginning of an acute attack. If not treated quickly, it can quickly escalate to what happened to your friend. The healing factor typical of immortals goes on overdrive, it can't keep up with the injuries and it just shuts down. It has a limit, and it seems like even the lycanthropic healing factor has its own. When she collapsed, her healing abilities had just given up their fight. That's why she had blisters on her skin and looked sunburnt."

"And the bleeding from the eyes?"

"Coagulation went ballistics. It happens. She was having various hemorrhages when she arrived, but once we gave her a concentrated dose of the drugs used to keep the disease in check, things got better, she started healing on her own again, though the process is slowed down." Greg shook his head. "And here I am, telling you things you shouldn't technically know."

Castle shrugged. "I won't tell them, if you don't."

"That should be fine. Since I've already spilled it, she needs some fresh blood. Right now, she's been given a homologous blood transfusion, in the next few hours she will be given platelets and red blood cells, in order to replenish her system. Then, if her blood work will be good enough, she'll be released with the instructions for a three day program to follow at home, then things will be back to normality. If the blood work isn't good, she will be given more blood and tests will be repeated."

"Are you sure she's going to be fine?"

He nodded. "Positive. She's strong, don't worry about it. Now, I have to go. The doctors are filling her father in with what I already told you, only in a more detailed way. You can ask him if you want those details."

Castle shook his head. "No thank you, I'm fine knowing she will get better."

"Alright. Have a nice day Mr. Castle and don't worry, everything will be OK."

Then he walked down the hallway, leaving him alone. Not for long though, as Jim Beckett came out of the exam room, followed by a small squad of doctors. They said goodbye and walked in the same direction of the nurse.

"You can go inside if you want," said Jim, picking up his case.

"You're not staying?"

He chuckled. "She wouldn't want me here. She knows I've got a big case going on and if she knew I came here she'd be mad as hell. And believe me, you don't want to see Katie mad. I've authorized the staff here to refer to you, in case she needs anything."

"But... you barely know me, how can you..."

"Mr. Castle, please. I've seen how worried you are about my daughter, even though you know about her condition. You can take care better care of her, because she trusts you. Just don't let her fool you with the whole I don't need your help act, she'll need all the help she can get. This attack was bad."

"I don't understand though... why can't you..."

"Katie is a very proud woman. The first time she refused to be helped by me or her mother when she got sick, and despite her condition it has happened, was when she was six. She wouldn't want me to hover. I still tend to treat her like a little girl and she doesn't like it, she says it makes her feel like an unworthy being, even though that's not my intention. But she respects you, and I have a feeling she would prefer to be helped by someone closer to her age."

Castle nodded. "Alright, I'll take care of her."

"Good. Tell her to call me when she's up for it."

Leaving a dumbstruck Castle behind, Jim Beckett disappeared down the hallway, briefcase in hand, and a very distinct slouch of his shoulders. Leaving his daughter in a cold, foreign hospital hurt him more than he tried to show. That man deserved a medal for leaving his hurt, only daughter alone when in need, because he knew she simply didn't want him there.

He wondered if Alexis would ever do something like that, asking him to leave her alone in a moment of need, just out of pure pride.

Not that he wanted to think about it, actually.

Despite knowing it was against the rules, he stood and silently walked inside the exam room. The curtains were shut to keep sunlight out, and the bright white lights blinded him for a moment. The smell of blood mixed with anticoagulant was even more intense in there and that made him feel a little nauseated, but nothing that a couple of deep, steadying breaths couldn't cure.

Beckett was still unconscious, her blood-stained clothes had been removed and changed with a plain, stark white gown. The heart monitor beeped steadily beside her, and the bag of blood Greg had mentioned was hooked to the IV stuck in her left hand, kept in place by a thick band of gauze and medical tape. The bed was too big for her, it nearly swallowed her lithe form, and he couldn't help but growl angrily as he noticed her skin was still matted with dried blood where it had poured when her body had just shut down due to stress and sun exposure. Her face was streaked with red, down her cheeks and the corners of her mouth. Even from her nostrils, though the nasal cannula that helped her breathing hid the stains. The sheets beneath her were stained too.

"How the fuck could they leave you like this..." he murmured, pulling a stool from the corner of the room. He noticed a clean steel bowl near a sink then, and to hell with rules he just couldn't leave her in that pitiful state. She would probably be embarrassed as hell when she'd woken up after she had collapsed, being left with blood smears everywhere would only add insult to injury.

Still careful not to be too loud, he filled the small bowl with warm water, grabbed a pack of clean gauze and with firm but gentle hand, proceeded to slowly clean the reddish-brown blots from her skin.

"And how could you let this happen, I don't know. I get it, you're an all-or-nothing type of cop, but we're talking about your health here!" he whispered, as he cleaned her cheek. "You managed to overwork your healing factor, to the point it just shut down!"

No response, of course. Not that he was expecting any, he had the feeling Beckett could be a stubborn one, when faced with these kind of issues. That and the fact that she had to face her ex boyfriend, all while working the case of a kidnapped kid, probably triggered a destructive chain reaction that prevented her to stop recklessly going forward, although her body begged her to just give up and pass the baton to someone else. Someone that could walk in broad daylight without risking burning to a crisp.

And he had foolishly offered to help her look for Theresa, long after the vampire safe time zone had ended, despite knowing she was already in pain.

She was probably still healing after all those damn trips upstate for the case they had finished just three days earlier. That had forced her to stay out in the sun for longer than usually considered safe for a vampire.

"Your dad says hi, by the way," Castle whispered, wiping the now pinkish gauze on her neck to clean it.

"Is he here?"

Her voice was barely a murmur, he wouldn't probably pick it up, if it wasn't for his own finer-than-average hearing. She didn't open her eyes though, the bright artificial light probably hurt them.

"No, he went away about thirty minutes ago. Said he was sure you didn't want him here to hover on you."

She let out a strained sigh. "And he was right. He left you here to deal with the too proud vampire that refuses help from anyone?" she asked.

"He said I shouldn't let you fool me with the I don't need your help gig. Was he right?"

She nodded, though it was just a minute movement of her head. "Yeah, he got it right. So, are you going to let me fool you?"

Castle shook his head. "No way. You're too weak anyway, I'm stronger, I can literally force you to lie on your bed and rest there."

"You know it sounds a lot like sexual harassment?"

"If I offended you in any way, please, forgive me, it wasn't my intention. But I mean it, I know you have to follow a strict program to go back to health and that you need rest. And I also know you won't rest, unless someone forces you."

"Wow, you met me less than two months ago and you already know that?"

He chuckled. "Not that hard to understand that. Also, werewolves have a greatly developed sense of empathy too. It's pretty easy to know someone, even just by observing them, for us."

She finally opened her eyes. They were bloodshot and crimson rimmed, dulled by the pain and the meds. Her body was paying a high price for her recklessness, that was sure. "So, what are you going to do?"

"For now I'm cleaning up this mess. The doctors and nurses left you covered in blood and seriously, it was a grisly sight that I really wish I won't see in the future. After that, I'm going to call Montgomery, and by proxy the boys, and inform them that you're awake and on your way to health, then I'll wait with you until you are released. I'll run errands like fetching you something to drink or eat in case you're hungry or thirsty and stuff like that. When you're released, I'll make sure you go home, get your meds and rest."

"Sounds like you planned it to the tiniest detail."

Another nod. "Hell yeah I did. I just need to inform Alexis and Mother, but I highly doubt they'll mind if I stay out tonight."

"And where are you planning to stay?" she asked, not without a tad of glee in her voice.

"Your couch, I think. Your father asked me to take care of you, and that's what I want to do."

Beckett sighed. "I'm too tired to argue with that. Fine, you can stay at my place. It's only right, after all I crashed at your place not too long ago."

"Let's not make it about who crashed where and when," he said. "Let's make it more something in the mood of I desperately need to finish a book and you need someone to help you, let's combine the two things."

She nodded and rubbed her eyes with the back of the unoccupied hand. "Just this time though. And only because you need to finish that book."

"Admit it, you want spoilers."

"No thank you, I prefer to be completely spoiler-free when I read it. I'd be happy to have a sneak peek for the first official draft though."

"It will be done. First copy out of the printing machine it's yours, I'll make sure of that."

Beckett fell back to sleep after a while, and Castle decided to use that time to do some phone calls. First, he contacted Jim to reassure him about his daughter's improving condition, then it was time for Montgomery. The captain was worried out of his mind and was more than happy to hear from Castle, even more when he actually brought good news to the bustling precinct. He also gave him a quick update on Theresa Candela's situation, so Beckett could be kept informed too, and told him that Lanie was on her way to the ER to give Beckett a set of clean clothes.

He kept the most important call last. His daughter picked up her cell phone pretty much instantly. "Hey Dad, are you alright?"

"Hi Pumpkin, yeah I'm just fine, you?"

"Same old, I'm studying for my calculus test. Did you find the kid?"

"Oh, yes, actually we found her a couple of hours ago and got the kidnapper too. Case closed. Listen... in the process of arresting the perp," he willingly omitted the fact that it was Angela's own mother. "Beckett got hurt. She's at Mount Sinai ER right now, I'm here with her."

"Is she going to be alright?" Alexis sounded sincerely worried.

"Yes, she's going to be just fine, just nasty side effect of her condition, you know, sun and everything."

"I can imagine. It's not like you can be picky when chasing down a child kidnapper."

"Exactly. Do you mind if I stay out and help her tonight? Doctors said she can't be alone and her father can't stay. And apparently, she doesn't want him to stay too."

He heard her chuckle. "Dad, you haven't asked my permission to stay out in ages. What's going on?"

"Nothing! Seriously, it's just that... I thought it would be somewhat polite to ask, I mean, I don't want this thing to disrupt your life more than it already does."

"Dad, you coming home from a party with lipstick marks on your shirt disrupts my life. You having one-night-stands with groupies who only want to get in your pants and never even read one line of your books disrupts my life. Not you staying with Detective Beckett because she needs help. Now tell me what I need to pack in your bag and I'll come at Mount Sinai to hand it over."

"You're perfect, you know that?"

"Must have got that from your father."

"Ouch, that hurt!" he joked.

"I know. Give me an hour, I'll be there as soon as I can."

Lanie came and went, leaving a duffle bag and a very stern warning to Castle to take care of his girl in her trail. The ME chatted a little bit with Kate, getting all the reassurance she needed after what had happened. After the first bag of blood her condition had slightly improved, but the doctors were waiting for the rest of the treatment before declaring her free to go home. That meant two bags of platelets and one of concentrated red blood cells, and a bag of saline solution with blood clotting drugs to replenish the clotting factors lost when her healing system shut itself down. It took three more hours, during which Alexis arrived to hand Castle his overnight bag and his laptop so he could work and chatted a little bit with Kate.

"I hope you don't mind if I borrow your dad for a night."

"Detective, you can borrow him every time you need, most of all during finals. And if it means he's going to finish Heat Wave, he can stay out every night for all I care."

"Oh daughter of mine, you wound me with your words!" he whined, melodramatically.

That made Beckett laugh. "Oh Castle, I'm pretty sure she's saying it only for your own good."

The teen nodded. "And mine too. I mean, now that Gina's out of the picture, she can't be a vulture on his back, pushing him to send in chapter after chapter like a robot, so she calls at every hour to push him."

"No wonder they divorced..." she murmured.

"Hell yes, home has been extremely quiet since Gina left," replied Alexis. "But I digress and I have to go back and finish homework. Take care Detective, and if Dad misbehaves, just shoot him. He can take it."

Beckett laughed. "Come on, call me Kate. Or Beckett. But not Detective. At least when we're not at the precinct. Now go back, I think I can take care of a big cuddly wolf."

"Oh, you're right about him being cuddly. Just make sure he won't sneak into your bed."

That sounded a lot like a threat, to Castle. "Alright Pumpkin. Time to go home. Say hi to Grams from me, OK?"

His daughter nodded and hugged him. "And you behave, please. Be a gentleman."

He shrugged. "I was actually thinking about ordering Chinese take away and watch a movie. You think it's gentlemanly enough?"

Another blood bag transfused and a full set of tests later, finally by six PM Kate was officially discharged, with a strict follow up program to follow, meaning three days in a screened environment, no sun exposure allowed. Eating right and taking her drugs were mandatory and she wasn't allowed to be alone for at least 24 hours.

"Turns out I do really need your help," said Kate as she got dressed. Castle was behind the curtain that separated her bed from the rest of the room.

"You can always call your father."

"Nope. He's working on a big case, some class action against a corporation that uses child laborers and such. He doesn't have time. Where do you think I got the dedication to the job?"

"I don't know, your mother maybe?"

She had to agree with him. "Yeah, from her too. OK, I'm ready."

Castle pulled the curtain and walked beside her, hooking his arm around hers to help her. She hated it, but she really needed his help, even for walking out of this place. She had adamantly refused to be escorted to the exit on a wheelchair and her fierceness for once had granted her wish.

"Let's go home then, the car is already waiting for us," he stated. "I made sure the driver parked in a shadowed area."

As they started walking out, with Castle holding both her and their bags, she cringed. Her stomach still hurt, she swooned and wobbled a little bit as they walked down the busy corridors of the ER to the exit. Castle though never let her fall. He held tightly on her, but discretely. His massive presence made her feel safer, not as weak and powerless she usually felt during or after an acute attack.

On their way home, she nearly fell asleep while Castle arranged for dinner from what she heard, he ordered enough food for a regiment, while she dozed off against the cool, screened window. But when it was time to get out of the car and to the elevator, there were no blood transfusion that could help her, she was still too weak. As they waited in the lobby for the elevator, she had to lean more onto him to stay up.

"Hey, hey don't pass out on me again," he murmured, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees and picking her up. "You could have told me you didn't feel well."

"I hoped I could get at least to the apartment," she sighed, leaning against his shoulder. "Didn't want to embarrass myself."

"My dear Detective, it takes way more than passing out be embarrassing, at least in my opinion." The elevator finally arrived in the lobby. "Come on, let's get you on a flat surface, I'm pretty sure you'll feel better."

She guided him to her door, and he deftly opened the lock while still holding her. His superhuman strength surely helped a lot with that acrobatic feat. Immediately, he walked in the living room and gently laid her on the couch. She toed her shoes off and sighed in relief.

"Is there anything you need?" he asked.

"Just the blanket over there, I think I'll rest for a little before dinner comes in."

He nodded, and quickly spread the blanket over her. She snuggled beneath it, pulling it up to her chin. "It should be here in an hour or so. You want to take a nap or something?"

"Might not be a bad idea. Kitchen right there and the bathroom is just down the hallway. Don't even try to wander around in my bedroom or I swear I'll shoot you."

"I suppose you have a backup gun, because your service piece was taken by Esposito when you collapsed."

She groaned. "Yeah, well, who cares? I'll find a way to hurt you. Now let me sleep for a while."

She was out until the doorbell rang. She opened one eye and saw Castle setting his laptop on the floor and walk to the door. She had to admit he had a great butt, and that particular pair of jeans made it look even better. Giggling softly, she pictured him in the dressing room of one of those incredibly expensive stores looking for the perfect pair that would make his butt stand out. But as he came back with two bags full of styrofoam containers, the bulge of his biceps beneath the plain black t-shirt made her mind wander back to that day when he had practically undressed, just before changing.

Damn that writer was hot.

"Hey sleepyhead, how do you feel?" he asked, setting the bags on the coffee table.

She rubbed her hands on her eyes. In the dim light, they didn't feel like they were on fire anymore. "Better. I think. Wow... you ordered for the whole precinct?"

He started pulling the boxes out. "I like variety. And while you were dead to the world, no pun intended, I took the liberty to go to the grocery store down the street and fill your fridge and pantry."

"Castle, I can take care of myself," she whined. "Hand over the noodles, thanks."

He set the box in her hands, with a pair of chopsticks. "Do you need to take your meds before or after a meal?" he asked.

"There's no rule. It's not like they can cause an ulcer or something, but I usually take them after I eat something, just out of habit." She took a mouthful of noodles and moaned at the heavenly taste. "Oh God where did you order?"

"Fa Zhu," he said, before taking a bite of his own portion of chilli noodles.

"No way, Fa Zhu doesn't deliver!"

"On special occasions, he does. Most of all when a rather decent mystery writers puts his struggle with the Triads on paper as a tribute to his restaurant."

"Oh come on you can't tell me that Storm's Last Stand's restaurant owner story is tailored on Zhu's!"

He shrugged. "Not tailored. I just borrowed something. He liked it though, so I can order in, from time to time. I usually go and eat there, Alexis loves his Kung Pao chicken."

"So do I. Damn, you really have some influence here and there!"

"I ordered double, just in case. I was thinking... you want to go and take a shower after dinner, while I clean up? We can watch a movie later, if you want."

"The idea sounds good. Have an idea?"

"No, but I have Netflix. It's not like you have much to watch, except for Disney movies. I didn't think you were one for videogames though."

She chuckled. "I was closed in my room most of the time, sometimes even a bookworm like me wants to do something different."

"I see. Favourite game?"

"It's a tie between Tomb Raider III and Fallout 3. And Morrowind"

"Wow, you like action role play games! I like it. Waiting for anything in particular now?" he asked.

"I pre-ordered Batman Arkham Asylum. And I'm kind of curious about Dragon Age: Origins, but that comes out around Christmas, there's time. Pass the chicken, please."

They ate as they talked about books and movies, of what they wanted to watch later, and when they were stuffed, Castle started cleaning up, giving Beckett enough time to take a shower. Given her current state of weakness, she cut it short, staying under the relaxing warm spray of water just enough to wash away the grime and some of the stress away. It wasn't enough though, as she felt that weight over her shoulders become only slightly lighter when she came out of the bathroom, her still wet air dripping on her purple oversized t-shirt. Sighing, she walked to the living room again and found Castle with his laptop prompted on his thighs typing away on the keyboard.

"So, you chose a movie?" she asked sitting on the couch.

"I was waiting for you actually. Any suggestions?"

She shrugged. "I don't know... I'm not up for anything too heavy tonight."

"The Dark Knight?" he proposed.

Beckett shook her head. "No please. That's exactly the kind of movie I don't want to watch tonight. Though I wouldn't mind Batman Returns. I've got the DVD somewhere."

She made to stand up but Castle stopped her and followed her instructions on where she kept her movies. "You really like superheroes, I saw your comic stash, you keep it right beside my books."

"That's only half of it. The rest is near the sex toys."

Groaning, he stopped in his tracks and looked at her. "You keep your comics near your sex toys? Isn't it a little anti hygienic?"

"No Castle," she laughed. "God, you're so easy. I was kidding. The rest is back at my dad's place. This is only for recent stuff, I've got the older comics back in my old bedroom."

"Better. Oh, I found it. Do you have a player or we have to use the PlayStation?"

"PlayStation. And before we start, let me take my meds. I don't want to forget them again."

Michelle Pfeiffer had just transformed in Catwoman the first time and claimed her first victim when Castle stood and went to the kitchen. "You want a beer?"

She shook her head. When he returned, he sat in his corner, careful not to touch her. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Since when do you ask me if you can?"

"It's about your mother," he stated.

He noticed her eyes darkened at the mention. "Don't tell me you went looking into her case."

"No. I just googled what happened, since I couldn't remember it. And that's weird because I'm good at remembering things like this. There was little to nothing on the news at the time, and that's even more weird because she was a well known personality!"

Sighing, Kate nodded. "I know. Except for the obituary and a couple other short articles, her murder wasn't ever mentioned in the news. Not even the local ones."

"Now that's weird. Not even the immortal community mentioned it?"

"If they did, I never heard of them. It's like she had never existed. She was murdered in the most gruesome way and no one talked about it. The police dismissed it as random gang violence and all I've got left is her memory and the smell of her killer firebranded in my memory."

"The smell of her killer?"

Beckett closed her eyes and snuggled beneath the blanket again. "Yes. When my dad and I went to the morgue to officially identify her, they hadn't done the autopsy yet, all the smells were still intact. I could smell her perfume, her shower gel, her shampoo and her conditioner but most of all could smell at distinct masculine scent, a mix of cologne, deodorant, stale sweat and stout beer. Like someone that worked in an Irish pub or lived with someone working in one," she explained. "The cologne though wasn't cheap, not that nasty smell that some cheap colognes have and makes me want to puke even my first peanut butter sandwich."

"That's quite specific."

She nodded. "Hell yeah it's specific. And it's why I didn't buy the random gang violence act. My mother was killed by someone rich, or someone that wanted to look like he was rich. And the autopsy report was altered, there are signs on the paper."

"Have you had Lanie look at it?"

"Nah, no need. It's a cold trail. I can't ask her to get into this, I don't want to jeopardize her career. Someone asked a lot of favors to have the murder downplayed, if that someone catches wind I'm investigating I don't know what will happen to those that help me."

He took a sip of beer and looked back at the screen. "What if I ask a friend to take a look at it?"

"Who?"

"The retired medical examiner that has helped me with all the details about dead bodies since I wrote Unholy Storm."

"Is he trustworthy?"

He nodded. "Never released a spoiler in ten years. I guess he is."

"I don't know Castle... why are you even doing this?"

"Because if my mother had been murdered like yours you'd do the same," he said. "And I doubt you'd stop just because people downplayed it as a random act of gang violence. Not after I've seen you totally disregard your own health to save a baby girl from her mother. He might not find anything, but you never know."

She sighed. "I'll get you a copy of the file. Just promise me that if he doesn't find anything worth it you'll drop it."

"Deal."

They went back at watching the movie, until the credits rolled in and Castle saw Beckett had fallen asleep on the couch. Not brave enough to wake her up, he placed the now empty beer bottle beside his laptop and picked her up, carrying her to her bedroom. He slowly set her down to roll the covers down so he could tuck her in. She didn't even move, as exhausted as she was. He closed the curtains and left her room so she could rest.

Once back in the living room, he made himself comfortable on the couch and opened the laptop again. He fell asleep while writing a scene that had Nikki and Rook completely in the dark, their shapes merging with the shadows around them.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 12**

The forced isolation days came and went, so did the desk bound mandatory week after Beckett was cleared by her doctor to go back to work. And when she finally could go back on the field, she felt like she had just been let out of a cage. Everyone at the precinct kept treating her like she was made of glass and she just couldn't take it anymore, Castle could deduce it by the tone of her text messages while he was home writing.

At least Will had kindly decided to not interfere. Not even a call while she was home, and he basically disappeared.

Until they had to ask for his help during a case involving a dead plastic surgeon involved with the FBI witness protection program. And he got injured while helping them. They closed the case, but Will ended up staying in the hospital for a while.

After that case, Castle received an ultimatum from Gina. He had to finish Heat Wave before going back to the precinct and playing cops all day. Only he needed help. There were things that he needed to have clear in his mind before putting them in words.

He felt so stupid for having procrastinated the real work for so long, that one morning, when he was sure Beckett was home, he knocked at her door, laptop in a backpack and breakfast for two in hand, in desperate need for some spurring. He also took advantage of that day to ask a couple of questions about the side of police work he had steadfastly refused to witness: the bureaucracy, and some sides of the story.

Though he actually didn't want to disturb her on her day off, but he was really swamped and needed some help, straight from the source.

That's how he spent an intense day typing, correcting, deleting and re-writing entire chunks of Heat Wave under Beckett's direction, all trying to keep the juicy parts from her so she could actually remain spoiler free until he managed to get his hands on the first printed copy.

He finished the final draft of the book a week later, handed the manuscript to Gina and waited for the editor to do her job, and finally relaxed. He kept hanging around the precinct for a month, but then the book finally hit the prints and he got sucked in that very specific ring of hell that Dante Alighieri reserved to his fellow writers: promotion tours and signing sessions.

There were interviews to be recorded, press to meet, promotional tours with readings of selected passages to small crowds of fans… all around the country.

He hated that.

Yet, he was sure Beckett was kind of happy not to have him at the precinct, no need to babysit him and bear his childish remarks and behavior.

About a month into his national tour, Alexis called and informed him that Beckett had come the night before and left two thick files from him, that she said he knew what it was. He asked her to send one of the files to Dr. Murray and that he'd warn him about it as soon as he could.

So summer came and went, between promotional stuff and that nagging need to kill both Gina and Paula when they decided how he needed to lead his life, how he had to be when in public and groupies that asked him to sign their chests.

At least Alexis wasn't present most of the times it happened.

By the time he managed to get over all the obligations inflicted upon him for months by his ex-wife and his agent, a diabolical tag-team when they wanted, September had rolled in. And it was for a photoshoot. For Cosmopolitan. And of course he had to maintain his playboy persona and do that damned shoot with two models  _undressed_ as the stereotypical cops from porn movies.

He was so embarrassed he could barely look at Beckett while she was being interviewed by the same journalist that had done his own interview about a week earlier. Apparently one of Cosmo's top reporters, that girl was all giggles and dumb questions. He had expected much more out of that interview, and now, as he sometimes managed to look at Beckett and the so called journalist, he had the feeling that his favourite detective felt just the same. She looked so annoyed he had the feeling one moment or another she would shoot the girl, just to stop the barrage of stupid question she was throwing at her.

That absolutely wasn't the way he wanted to be reintroduced at the 12th. Not even in his craziest dreams he had imagined one day he'd be posing for the most stupid photoshoot with two faceless models for an article on a stupid magazine.

How come they couldn't just take a normal picture of him and Beckett, side by side at her desk, an artist and his muse, and just be over with it?

At a certain point, he found himself wondering which model had the tastier marrow.

He nearly threw up on the spot.

He exploited that temporary uneasiness to ask for a break and take refuge in the break room.

"What the fuck have I agreed to?" he asked himself as he fumbled with the over-priced espresso machine he had bought not that long ago. He was trying to get that feeling of uneasiness that always came every time he had to act like someone he wasn't out of his system, just long enough to get the jitters out of his hands and a fake smile on his face again.

"Whatever it is, I wish you had warned me about the two models," said Beckett from the door, before entering and shutting it behind her. "I would have appreciated that."

He shrugged. "I wish I had known too. I thought they were going to take a couple of pictures of the bullpen, maybe one of us together you know…"

She frowned. "No, I don't."

"Uh come on Beckett that's not what I mean. I thought they were going to ask to pose doing what we usually do, you know… solve crimes staring at the murder board."

"That is a picture I would willingly let them take. But that? They're using you as a stripper pole! You look like a piece meat hanged at the market stall!"

"Want to take a bite?"

Beckett snorted softly. "In your dreams."

"That often happens. Coffee?" he asked, before he started preparing his own.

"Yes please. Damn, that journalist is so annoying!" Castle nodded and started preparing her cup. "All she asks is about the damn sex scene and if we rehearsed it together. For heaven's sake did you have to put a sex scene in that book? A book I haven't read yet!"

"I know, the publisher hasn't shipped my copies, they didn't allow me to have even a sample from the stash printed for the press. I'm sorry, I have no idea when they'll allow me to give your copy. Though I doubt she read it. And if I had known they'd be so irritating I wouldn't have let them arrange this interview with you. I hoped they'd send someone better."

"And I wish I would never appear on Cosmopolitan, but hey, the PD is in desperate need for good publicity so the Captain sort of forced me to do it."

"Again, I'm sorry."

"Hey, lovebirds…" Esposito's loud voice startled them. "We've got a possible jumper, Lanie's on her way. Finish your coffee, it's time for work."

Castle sighed in relief. "Oh thank God."

Though not exactly nice, both the detective and the writer were happy to cut the ties with the little ring of hell. They finished their coffees and grabbed their things. They were about to reach the elevator when the journalist announced she was coming with them.

For a moment Beckett swore she saw the same dark shade in his eyes they took when he turned into a werewolf. "Calm down, wolf," she whispered.

"Trying. I just hate her."

All the way to the crime scene, the chirpy reporter kept talking, to the point Beckett was ready to shoot her only to have a moment of silence in the car. She was so happy to see the author playing cop, she couldn't wait to write the reportage. Or so she said.

Kate had the feeling she just wanted to have sex with him.

She didn't really envy him, at all. His agent and publisher treated him like a piece of meat, for real. No wonder he acted like a jerk all the time, people wanted him to act like a jerk!

Once they reached their destination, Beckett parked and they walked to the area marked by the police tape. As soon as she and Castle looked up, they knew they weren't dealing with a jumper. Lanie was standing on a platform raised nearly to the top of a tree where their victim had found his death. "Hey Lanie, what do you have for us?" she asked.

The ME looked down, shielding her eyes from the bright light that helped her examining the body in the dim light of the evening. "Hey, look who's back," she said, waving at Castle. "And for the body, for now I can't tell you much, except that he wasn't a suicide."

Beckett looked at Castle, and they nodded, knowingly.

"How can you tell?" asked the journalist.

"Because when you want to die you aim for the concrete, not for a tree," explained Castle.

"Ten points for our writer. At worse, if he had willingly jumped aiming for this tree, he'd come down with a broken limb, at most. Maybe a concussion," added Lanie. "But even if he had jumped, the trajectory would have been wrong. He was pushed. But more than that, there are visible marks of strangulation on his neck."

"So it's definitely homicide," stated Beckett. "Alright. Got an ID?"

Lanie fumbled a little with the dead man's pockets until she found his wallet. "John Allen. License says he lives in the City." She put the wallet in a plastic bag and dropped it to Esposito.

"We'll check the address out," he stated.

Beckett nodded. "Good." She turned to the reporter. "I'm sorry to inform you are not allowed to stay here anymore. I'll drive you back to the precinct and if you have more questions you'll have the chance to ask them while we're in the car. Castle, go with Lanie, I'll see you at the morgue."

The writer nodded, clearly happy to get away from the nosey reporter and her incessant, chirpy inquires.

Inquires that didn't stop during the trip back to the 12th, but fortunately, once they arrived, she went straight to her car, leaving Beckett alone. She was already heading to the morgue when her phone rang. Castle was calling.

"Just dropped off our favourite reporter, I'm coming," she said, quite distracted.

"No need. Someone stole the body."

She clenched her fingers on her phone. "You've got to be kidding."

"He's not!" She heard Lanie yell in the background. "Yeah, I'm not kidding. Someone stormed the van with automatic weapons and ski masks. They grabbed the body bag and loaded it on a car without plates. Sorry Beckett, I couldn't do anything. Lanie's calling CSU, Espo and Ryan are on their way here too. What do we do?"

Beckett roughly ran her free hand on her face, thinking. "We go and check his address. He had a wedding ring, maybe we'll find his wife there. Text me your position, I'll come and pick you up."

She started the engine again and received his text. But there was more than his location: the text said  _He smelled like a drug lab._

That's never good.

The investigation soon took a grim and bizarre turn from that moment on.

First, meeting the widow was like the most embarrassing thing she had ever done in her life. Apparently John Allen had a pristine reputation of a good husband, dedicated to his family and his job, and a perfect life and she was all tears and desperation. Then she asked to see the body.

Her reaction when they had told her about the body  _snatchers_ , as Castle called them, wasn't exactly pretty. She only refrained from trying to murder them with a kitchen knife before there were children in the other room.

Then they learned he had been unemployed for months, that he was drowning in debts and that he was about to lose everything. Wife and kids included, probably, once she learned of all the lies he had told her.

And then there was the matter of the drugs. Castle had confirmed that he smelled like cocaine, and though she didn't really wanted to know how he had got familiar with the smell of cocaine, but Beckett trusted Castle. Or at least his sense of smell. It had been an important tool for them in the past, now it was just a matter of waiting for forensic evidence to support his founding.

And then they found the body, crudely cut open and with his stomach and intestines removed. A grisly sight, to say the least, but it validated the theory that he was smuggling drugs.

While they were on the way back to the car, Castle threw up in a trashcan.

"You alright?" she asked, suddenly worried.

He shook his head. "No. I told you, I hate the smell of blood, makes me gag." He kept retching a couple times more, before he took a steadying breath and stood again. "Blood and a decomposing body kept out of a freezer make a awful combination."

"Stick with us a little more and you'll get used to it. I've never met a cop that hasn't thrown up at least once. Let's get to the car, fresh air will help."

"As if we can find fresh air in New York," he groaned.

Later, they managed to identify the dealers via a fingerprint and busted their lab, arresting all of them while they were preparing the doses to sell. They were literally caught red-handed, considering their hands were covered in Allen's blood. Also, during the autopsy, Lanie found that the marks around his neck showed some physical impairment to his left pinky, to the point it didn't actually leave a mark.

That was something, but not much, so they kept digging. They had the dealers, so they interrogated them.

Turned out their victim had more debts than his bank statement led them to believe. He had debts with the Russian Mafia, or so one of the dealers told them. While trying to find a job, he also tried his luck in illegal gambling houses in Chinatown.

His luck, apparently, had abandoned him.

And there their trail went cold.

They found themselves at loss in front of the murder board, searching for that one straw that would allow them to catch their killers.

Only that straw was the Russian Mafia, and they were good at keeping their affairs for themselves.

"What if we find the gambling house?" proposed Castle.

"That would be nice, Castle," replied Esposito. "Only they travel location every night and they keep their mouth shut about it with cops. The Chinese Triads are even better at keeping secrets. We don't have that type of information, unfortunately."

"Yes you do." He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Who are you calling?" asked Beckett.

"Stephen Cannell. He's an avid poker player, likes his stakes high and loves illegal gambling even more. He might be able to help us."

A little less than two hours later they were sitting in a surveillance van, with Ryan installing a micro camera in place of one of his shirt's button. Cannell had given them the address of tonight's meeting and Castle had money to spend. The plan was simple, he'd go in, look for the pinky-less Russian mobster then they'd call for backup, arrest their guy and bust the ring of illegal gambling houses. At least they hoped they'd manage to pull it off.

It was a risky operation, even with a virtually invulnerable lycanthrope as bait.

"Are you sure you feel up to it? You're not trained for this type of job," said Beckett, following him out of the van.

"I'm the only one here that plays poker with a decent skill. The skill that will allow me to get close to the mobsters. And I'm pretty much safe you know… in case I'm in trouble I can bite."

"Be careful, alright? I don't really want to call Alexis to tell her that her father was shot by a gangster."

"Does it hurt that much? Getting shot?" he asked.

"Yes, it hurts, even though we heal nearly instantly."

He nodded. "I'll try not to get shot. Wish me luck."

With that, he walked away, heading to the entrance of the basement where the gambling house had been set up. Beckett went back inside the van and set between Esposito and Ryan. "Who else thinks he's going to get into trouble bigger than him?" The two cops raised their hands, eyes never leaving the video feed from Castle's camera. "You alerted the SWAT team?"

"Yes, I did," answered Ryan. "We're covered. As soon as Castle finds our killer, they'll come and help us."

"Let's hope he doesn't get killed before that," replied Esposito.

They remained silent, watching what Castle allowed them to see and listening to what he heard. Even what he couldn't understand, since Beckett spoke Russian fluently and could translate for them.

But then Castle started telling the story of their victim, making it vague but recognizable by their murderer. That triggered a reaction in one of them: a grey haired man at Castle's right was toying with his left pinky, clearly a prosthesis by the way he was unnaturally twitching it.

"That's him, I'm calling the SWAT," said Espo.

In that moment though, Castle took the gangster's bait and gambled all his money. "What the hell is he doing?" stated Ryan, looking at the screen.

"He's getting himself killed."

Beckett stood up and opened the door of the van. "Hand me my purse!"

"What the hell are you going to do? Lipgloss them to death?"

Instinctively, she nodded. "Something like that."

As she closed the door with a heavy slam, she sighed. Never in her life she had thought that one day she'd have to undress to save someone's life. At least she had worn matching underwear that morning.

Things were getting bad, at the poker table.

A lucky hand had allowed Castle to put a lot of money in his pocket, and that didn't make the mobsters in front of him happy. But as he gathered the large amount of banknotes, they didn't say a word, in Russian or English.

But when he finally stood and headed for the exit, now sure that the SWAT team was on its way there, their murderer grabbed his arm and placed the muzzle of a large caliber gun right at his kidneys. "Come with me," he whispered, then he pushed him towards the kitchen.

"Who else knows?" he asked, in a thick accent, as soon as the door was shut closed.

"Know what?" Castle tried to play dumb, and raised his hands when the man pointed the gun in front of him.

"That man… Allen… who knows?"

Again, he tried to play dumb. "I don't really know what you're talking about!"

"Don't lie to me, you're a cop!"

He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a soft chuckle behind him. "Him a cop? Don't make me laugh he's not even a man!"

Looking behind his shoulder, he saw Beckett slowly approaching the mobster. He couldn't help but feel a lump forming in his throat as he realized her state of undress and the slightly mussed hair. Her makeup was darker, it gave her a smoky, sultry look that made him feel a little hot. The fact that she was now speaking in the same thick accent of the mobster in order to distract him made his pants feel suddenly a little tight.

Things became a little messy after that. Beckett was in full vampiric seductress mode and the mobster noticed her sharp fangs, so reacted like the typical superstitious person: he screamed like a little girl. That allowed her to knock the gun out of his hand and pin him to the stove behind him, an arm twisted behind his back secured in her grip and the muzzle of the weapon pressed against his temple. That rendered him harmless, reducing the once threatening Russian in a whimpering pile of flesh.

"Is it just me or did you change?" asked Castle when the situation calmed a little bit.

"Wow, we've got an eagleeye. Yes, I changed." They heard the SWAT team busting the door in the other room and they both smiled. "I had to save your ass, you know."

The raid was a success. Many arrests were made, the ring of illegal gambling house was stopped and many people who had contracted debts with the mob were saved, in exchange for their witnessing in the trials to come. The DA office would have a lot of work to do the next months, to dismantle the whole thing.

Back at the precinct though, the situation was a lot calmer. Ryan and Esposito were cleaning the murder board while Beckett and Castle worked on the bureaucratic side of the closing of a case. That meant that Kate filed paperwork and Castle played with paperclips, just as usual.

But then, while the two detectives had gone to the evidence storage to hand over the sealed box with their findings, Beckett stopped writing the form in front of her.

"Have you heard from your friend? The ME?"

Castle stopped playing with the clip he had shaped into a tiny airplane. "Dr. Murray? Actually yes, but I wanted to talk about it in a different place. He smelled something fishy."

"How fishy?"

"Said it was cover-up. Can you deal with paperwork tomorrow?"

"High profile. I need to file this tonight, if you help me it won't take long."

He took a pen and the next form she had in the tidy pile on her desk. "Then let's get this over with."

They finished not an hour later. Castle filled the forms at record speed and Beckett signed them faster than anyone else he had ever seen. They left a little bit after Espo and Ryan, heading to a bar of his choice. His favourite bar, to be honest. The Old Haunt was open until the early in the morning and it wasn't exactly crowded, after midnight. They had all the privacy they needed. They detoured so he could pick up the file Dr. Murray had sent him while he was still on tour, then headed to the old bar.

Castle led her to a secluded boot, his personal favorite spot. "Want something to drink?" he asked, placing the now thicker file in front of her, on the dark table.

"Do they have tequila here?"

"Only the best," he replied with a smile. If she only knew what role tequila had in Heat Wave...

Castle disappeared for a couple of minutes, then returned with a bottle of Cuervo Traditional Reposado and a small tray with two shot glasses, lime and salt. He set the tray down then sat in front of her.

Still silent, he placed the two glasses in front of them and poured the first two shots. Completely forgoing the lime and salt, they downed the shot at the same time, relishing as the amber liquid burned their throat in the sweetest way, not grimacing like most of normal human beings did when doing the same. Sometimes being an immortal had its perks.

"So, you said he mentioned a cover up."

Castle nodded and opened the file. "Yes. Your mother was killed by an expert hand, not a random gang member with a normal knife."

She growled. "I knew it."

He nodded, again. "Yes." He pulled a picture from the file. It showed an anatomically correct model of a person with all the stab wounds marked down in their position, then another one that showed close-up photos of each. "You see this?" He pointed at a wound on the back, beside the spine, then to the corresponding photo on the other sheet. "Dr. Murray said this is the only deadly wound. He said that a long knife, those used by military special forces, was used to stab your mother in the kidneys. The bruise and the shape of the cut show that the knife was pushed hard, so it penetrated deeper than the length of the blade, and it was twisted."

Beckett poured another shot for both of them, and drank hers. "Go on."

"He said it caused a massive shock that made her lose consciousness pretty much instantly. The rest of the wounds are just superficial, not enough to kill, used to mask the single lethal stab. This guy is a pro, Beckett, he has knowledge of human anatomy."

"What do you think? Military?"

Castle shook his head. "More contract killer. You see…" he took three more pictures out of the file. "These people were all killed the same way. He remembered them because he had studied those cases for a convention years ago. They are all unsolved murders and they all died around the time your mother was killed. In the very same way. The killer is left handed, a little shorter than me, and he knows how to kill."

"And probably he's rich, that would explain the smell of cologne."

"I'm pretty much sure he's tied to the Irish mob. You said you picked up a distinct smell of stout beer, right?"

"Yes. Stout beer and stale sweat, the smell of an Irish pub that hasn't seen fresh air in ages. No offense meant to other Irish pubs."

"So, what do you want to do now?"

The detective sighed, running her hands through her hair. While she had changed back into her normal clothes, she still wore the darker than usual makeup, and the tousled hair made her incredibly hot. Castle was lucky there was a table between them, to hide some embarrassing details of his anatomy.

"I don't know. It's not like we have much to work on."

"For now. But what if this guy has killed more people, this way? We could look into that. Lanie could help us."

"Remind me again why are you doing this, please."

"Because I respected your mother and because this does really look like a cover-up. And because you'd do this too, if that had happened to my mother."

Silently, Beckett took the DMV photo of the three other victims. "Hey wait a moment, I know these people! They were all… wait, this woman worked with my mother, I have pictures of them together at home. And this man… I've seen him before, with my mother again. He worked at the courthouse I think…"

"The ME that worked on these cases is the same. He never connected the crimes, though," he said.

"Then we have something to work on!"

He shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. He died four years ago."

Beckett slouched on the cushioned seat of the booth. "Goddamnit!" she said through clenched teeth. "We're back to square one again!"

"No, we've got something to work on actually. Just give it time, let Lanie do some magic with her archive and we'll see what we can do. Don't worry, even if it takes us our whole life, we'll find this bastard."

"Now that's kind of easy, being technically immortal."

He chuckled. "That kind of helps. Come on, let's talk about something a little lighter. Any interesting cases during the summer?"


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 13**

"I swear to God this case makes no sense!"

Beckett's whining caught his attention and he turned towards her, averting his eyes from the murder board.

"What makes no sense?"

She sighed and rested her elbows on the desk. "We've got a dead con artist that was about to get married to a heiress killed in his living room where he was pretending to be a polar explorer in front of a class of ten years old kids. Now tell me how this case makes sense?"

Castle looked back at the board and sighed. "A man died. That at least makes sense."

"Yeah, pretty much the only thing that is coherent on that board. Is it so interesting? You've been staring at it for an hour now."

"I'm trying to understand what goes through your head while you do it. You know, character research."

"Still no books from the publishing house?"

He shook his head. "Niet. Nothing, they don't want leaks, apparently, but I'm going to ask Gina again," he replied, pulling his phone out and typing a quick message. "I've been pestering her for weeks, I hope she'll give up at least one copy for you now."

"If she doesn't, I'll wait, it's not a problem."

"Beckett, I made a promise and I mean to keep it. You'll have a copy before the launch party, next week. By the way, do you want to come?"

"I'll think about it," she hastily replied. "Now, let's go back to work, shall we?"

There wasn't much more to say. They had a dead man with multiple identities, all of them tied to major scams. They had even interrogated one of his victims and Steven Fletcher appeared to be a genius at scamming people, even his friends. Every person they met related to him in any way thought he was just a kind, hard working man that was about to marry the girl of his dreams.

Said girl appeared to be totally and utterly distraught by his death and she seemed to be completely in the dark about his "job" as a con man, and things started getting weirder and weirder when they discovered that the teacher of the class that had witnessed the murder did know about it. And he was taking advantage of it too, cashing in some easy money outside the job.

And the girlfriend's father knew too, apparently, having employed a private investigator to check on him, before he married his only daughter. His alibi was strong and he had been really collaborative with them, even allowed them to inspect his legally detained gun. That man was the picture of innocence.

It made no sense, anyway she tried to look at it.

Each time they discovered something new they were drawn back to square one and they had nothing to grasp at that point in order to make progress in solving the case.

"Beckett, we're running in circles here. Espo and Ryan are swamped just like us. Don't you think it's better if we pause for a moment? Just the time to eat something I mean."

She looked at her watch. "It's kind of early for dinner, don't you think?"

"Won't be by the time Esposito and Ryan will be back. Why don't we place the usual order and have it delivered in an hour or two?"

"Castle, are you hungry or something?" she asked, clearly annoyed by his insistence.

He made a guilty face. "Kind of…"

She shook her head. "Go ahead. You know the others' usual order. Damn, I didn't know your kind could be hungry all the time like that. Or is it just you?"

Her question made him smile. "It's a matter of really fast metabolism. Lycanthropes have higher than average body temperature, we burn more energy than a normal human being just by doing nothing, it's our biology. Hence, I get hungry more often. I still have to master your ascetic ability of forsaking basic needs like food and sleep."

Her right eyebrow shot up. "What does that even mean?"

"That I still have to learn how to survive on coffee and molecular oxygen."

Beckett laughed, wholeheartedly, at his joke about her horrible eating habits. "Come on, order for everyone. I'll try to be a good person and eat a normal dinner tonight," she added, still smiling. "Then we go back at solving this murder."

Castle picked his phone and stood to move away from the bullpen. "Yes sir!"

They kept working as they ate, going through Fletcher's misdeeds as a highly successful con man, until the conversation switched to con movies. Castle was utterly appalled when Beckett stated that she hated con movies, but a tiny flicker in her eyelid allowed him to see through it, and he realized it wasn't true. Still, out of respect, he didn't call her bluff and let her do her own little conning of her colleagues.

Even Captain Montgomery, as experienced as he was, couldn't detect the lie.

Those were weird cops. Or they just looked like it to let the others think they fooled them.

Still they couldn't come up with decent ideas about who could have killed that guy. Not that he could, to be completely honest, he was as floored as they were, but he at least tried. Each theory he spewed made less sense than the one before, but at least he was trying.

There was only a theory he hadn't come up with, but that basically landed in their faces like a rock the next morning.

Out of options, they went back to the girlfriend, talked to her father and then with her again.

Her demeanor had completely changed. She looked jittery, nervous, and she kept looking at her best friend Susan, who always stood behind her. Strange.

"Miss Finnegan, are you alright?" asked Beckett when she noticed a slight tremor in her hands.

She gave them a quick nod. Too quick.

"Yes, yes Detective. I'm just fine…. it's just that…"

"Just what?" asked Castle.

The young woman looked again back to her always present friend. "Steven is alive."

To say that Beckett was baffled was reductive. "Excuse me?"

"He… I'm sorry, I haven't been completely honest with you, but I guess it's time you learn the truth about him. The whole truth."

Her tale made little to no sense. Just like the rest of that case.

"I can't believe it," snapped Beckett as they walked away from the Finnegan's residence. "Please tell me you don't believe it!"

"A lycanthrope CIA agent whose cover was being a professional con man that faked his own death on a live stream in front of a class of fourth graders in order to escape some unknown enemy? Makes so little sense it might even be true."

"Oh God for the first time in forever you say something that makes sense. I hate this case!"

"Come on Beckett! Have fun for a moment!"

She shook her head. "Castle. A man died."

"Yes, in some weird circumstances that, admit it, makes this a frustrating but funny case!"

"It'll be funnier when we'll close it. Really though, CIA? What was he doing on US soil? Is there even a way to find out if he was an operative agent?"

He nodded as they climbed in the car. "Yes there is. I just need to make a phone call."

"Like you called Juliard to check if your daughter's violin teacher was really a student there? Castle, you can't be serious!"

"Thai food is pleasing to the tongue." And then he hung up. "He'll call me back."

She shook her head and started the engine. "Let's go talk to Lanie. I want to know if Fletcher was a werewolf for real."

"I seriously doubt it."

"You think you'd pick up a trail or a distinctive smell?"

He shrugged. "Not really. It's not like werewolves or vampires smell differently from other people or they have distinct trace on them, you know that, or you'd have picked the fact that I am a werewolf up the moment you met me. I'm thinking more about bare statistics."

"Yeah, we're not that many and if he was really a werewolf he would have probably already healed by the time we found his apartment."

Later, at the morgue, Lanie welcomed them with a scowl for having interrupted her lunch. "This better be good."

"Apparently, Steven Fletcher is alive and left a message to his fianceè's voicemail. Are we positive this is Steven Fletcher?"

Lanie looked down at the body on the slab of the freezer. "Actually… I'm not really sure."

Beckett felt like the Genie in Aladdin, when his jaw drops to the ground. "What does that mean you're not sure?"

The ME shrugged her shoulders. "I mean that three quarters of his face were blown off by the gunshot and this guy had at least twelve aliases, and none of them went to the dentist. How do you expect me to be completely sure this is Steven Fletcher?"

"Could there be a chance this guys is an immortal?" asked Castle.

"Absolutely not. A wound like this isn't deadly for an immortal, there's no white phosphorous or anything incendiary involved. If this man was an immortal, be it vampire or werewolf, he would have healed before you found the body."

Beckett gave him a playful slap on his shoulder. "Just as I said. Come on Castle, we've got to find out if this guy is Fletcher or not."

As they quickly walked back to the car in order to avoid prolonged sun exposure for her, Castle started whining like a child, mumbling a series of words completely impossible to understand.

"Castle, stop acting like a kid!"

He huffed. "Is it weird that I really wanted him to be an immortal?"

"A little. Why?"

"Because… how many immortals do you know?"

Beckett halted for a moment, as she realized what was going on with him. "Oh. I see your point. And to be sincere, you're the only immortal I actually know, right now. I had a friend, years ago, but lost contact after high school."

They entered her car and shut the doors at the same time. "Really?"

"Yep. I went to Stuyvesant, the first school that allowed immortals to enroll and had specific precautions for us vampires, to allow us to go to school with other kids. Maddie and I were the only vampires at the time, I never got to know if there were werewolves too, but we were the only vampires there. And we bonded over that."

"Then you understand why I kind of wanted him to be an immortal."

"You never had contact with any of us before you met me?" she asked, curious.

He shook his head. "No. I mean… I attended some conferences when I was younger, participated to some rallies and civil rights movement's pacific demonstrations, but always in the back and always trying to keep out of conversations."

"I bet you regret it now."

He nodded. "Yes, I do. My mother tried to support me the best she could but… although she tried her best she couldn't really understand how hard I struggled with this… thing."

"Castle, it's a medical condition," interjected Beckett when she noticed how uncomfortable he felt talking about it. "We're not cursed, we're not the spawn of the devil, we're people with two distinct medical conditions that unfortunately were not understood in the past, and that caused the legends to be born. There's no need to be ashamed by it."

"You say that only because you don't transform into a huge rabid wolf."

"No, but if I stay too long outside I start bleeding from my eyes and ears and other places you don't want to know. If I skip a meal I get the worst stomach pains, so bad I want to die, and let's not talk about period cramps because those alone are bad enough, and I get them whether I take all my meds or not. At least you got to learn how to hold back your shifts. Us vampires? We learn to run and hide in the shadows from the moment we get our diagnosis."

He opened his mouth to reply when her phone beeped in her pocket. She quickly picked it up and put it on speakerphone. "Beckett."

It was Esposito. "Uhm, I don't exactly know how to say it, but there's a guy here that wants to talk to you. Says it's urgent."

She looked at Castle for a moment, not sure if said person was his CIA contact or not. "We're almost there, let him stay in the breakroom."

When they finally arrived at the precinct, they found a short, blood man in a gray suit sitting on the old lumpy couch with a cup of coffee in one hand and a thick manilla folder beside him. When they walked in the room, he smiled politely and stood up. "Detective Beckett, a pleasure to meet you. Castle, good to see you again in one piece."

He was calm and polite, not exactly the man she had imagined when Castle had told her he had once killed a man with an ice cream scoop.

"Thank you for coming, I appreciate the effort."

"Not a problem, anything for Nikki Heat. If he dedicated that book to you, you must be a valuable person."

"You read the book?" snapped Castle. "How?"

The look on the CIA operative was worth gold, Beckett couldn't help but laugh. "Beware though Detective, the sex scene is steamy."

"Oh come on, always this sex scene... How steamy can it be?"

"A lot," added the writer. "Uhm, about our man, you know anything?"

The operative shrugged. "I can't deny or confirm that he was one of our own," he said. Obviously, by the way he had stressed some words more than others, Fletcher wasn't one of their agents and he had once again lied to his fiancee.

"Wait a moment how did you know..." she started, only to be interrupted.

"Detective, knowing stuff is my job. Now, since we are done, I think I'll be taking my leave. It was a pleasure. And before I forget, there's some stuff you'll find interesting in that folder. If you'll excuse me... "

He walked out without further words, leaving the folder on the couch. Exchanging a quick look, they grabbed it and proceeded to tear the brown paper away. Inside there was a transparent plastic sleeve with some pictures in them and an early print of Heat Wave with a hand written message scribbled on a scrap of paper tucked between the pages.

" _Rick, if even half a sentence of the book ends up online before the official release, your detective is going to jail, understood? Gina._ "

"He intercepted the copy I asked for yesterday!" he practically screamed. "How the hell..."

"CIA, remember?" She took one of the pictures and examined it closer. It was a grainy but decent enlargement of a CC camera somewhere in New York. It showed the window of an internet cafe where Steven Fletcher sat at a table chatting with Elise's best friend Susan. Just the two of them.

Beckett flipped through the photo prints and pulled one out of the small pile. Steven and Susan in that one could only be described as intimate.

"Look at the date," she said as she passed it to Castle.

"What the hell? Liar, scammer and cheater? Bastard!"

"A dead bastard that had a tryst with the bride's best friend. To me it sounds like a motive."

"We need to speak to Elise. Right now."

She couldn't agree more. They rushed to the car and drove to the Finnegan's house, hoping to find Elise outside Susan's reach and interrogate her about the photos and Steven's relationship with her best friend.

Unfortunately, as they rushed inside so Beckett could walk away from direct sunlight. Elise wasn't home, but her parents welcomed them and were more than willing to help.

"I'm sorry to bother you once again but… how long has Elise known Susan?" asked Beckett, quite bluntly.

"About a year, maybe a year and half," replied her mother. "Soon after they met, Susan became Elise's best friend, they share everything."

"And you said she met Steven about six months ago?" she asked the father.

He nodded. "Yes, they clicked immediately and he asked her to marry him about two months ago. They seemed to be rushing things, but Elise seemed so happy and…"

"Beckett!" Castle had been wandering off the room and came back with the wedding brochure. "It looks a lot like Fletcher's presentation for the North Pole project. Who made this?"

"Susan, she's a graphic designer and she offered to handle the design of the invitations and everything else," replied her father.

At that point, all the pieces of that completely messed up puzzle started sticking together for both of them. It felt like they were both watching and commenting the same movie.

"Castle, Susan is part of the con."

"Or at least she was. She approached Elise way before Steven, became her best friend and confident then Steven comes in and knowing what she likes and such he makes her fall in love with him practically instantly!"

"But he falls in love with her too and decides to give up the whole thing, change his life and stop being a scammer. He calls of the con, but Susan wants her money."

"So she waits for the right chance and kills him and then plans to fool Elise to get the money she wants!"

"That means…"

"...The con is still on!" they basically shouted at the same time.

Less than two minutes later Beckett was driving towards the bank where Elise had her money stored while organizing a little scam herself with the help of the director of the bank. If they wanted to arrest Susan, they needed to catch her red-handed.

It took less than an hour to get Susan, make her confess and have Esposito and Ryan escort her to the precinct and start the bureaucratic part of the arrest, while Beckett tried to console the poor, disheartened Elise in the lobby of the bank. She was sobbing on one of the padded chairs, as Beckett tried to explain that, unfortunately, Susan wasn't actually her friend, but she was only sent in early to test her and gather information about her, so that Steven could hit the right keys and make her fall in love with him.

It didn't help much when she told the poor girl that Steven was killed because he wanted to call the scam, because he had fallen in love with her for real.

Once her parents arrived, they brought her to the precinct, along with the bank director, so they could give their statements for the DA.

"Nice con you pulled," said Castle, handing her a cup of steaming coffee from a nearby cafe.

She shrugged. "Sometimes you need to work with what you have. And I think the only way to catch a con artist is to con them yourself."

"Come on Beckett, I know you like con movies. I could see your lie the other day."

She shrugged. "I know. It was written all over your face."

"Eh, sometimes I forget it's impossible to lie to vampires."

"Not impossible, just very hard. If it was impossible, I would catch every murderer of every case I get, but there are still cases I can't solve," she replied, swishing the coffee in the paper cup.

"Still nothing from Lanie?"

She shook her head. "No, but I told her to take her time. I've waited for ten years, I can wait for a while longer."

"You'll find the bastard that killed your mother, with time. I'm sure of it. But while you wait, why don't we go out with the boys after you dealt with paperwork? My treat."

As tempting as it sounded, she had to decline. "Sorry, Castle, but there's a hot bath at home and a book at the precinct waiting for me. You wrestled with your ex wife to get me an advanced copy, the least I can do is reading it."

He grinned. "Page 105."

She turned to face him. "What?"

"The sex scene you so want to read. Page 105."

Beckett chuckled. "Perv. Come on, let's get you back home so I can go and fill paperwork."

Truth be told, the sex scene was the first thing she looked for, as soon as she arrived home.

She didn't get much sleep, after the long relaxing bath. She read the book all in one sitting, thankful that she had to be at the precinct only the next afternoon and could take it easy next morning.

And she loved it.


End file.
